


Fridays

by orphan_account



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst, Anxiety, Fluff, Homophobia, M/M, Major Character Injury, Pining, Slow Burn, but the fluff wins
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-04
Updated: 2016-08-24
Packaged: 2018-04-19 01:38:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 33
Words: 76,773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4727933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Practice is cancelled. Every Friday. Karasuno simply aren't deemed worthy enough of their school facilities when other teams are vying for a spot in their respective Nationals. In the meantime, that means there's a lot more free time every Friday, and Tsukishima and Yamaguchi have the full intent of making the best of it. In the team's quest to make it to Nationals and prove themselves, or just to give the third years the sendoff their teammates think that they deserve, circumstance eventually brings on one question for the team's number twelve.</p><p>Does anything ever go right in Yamaguchi's life?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Circumstance

“Sorry, volleyball club. That’s just the way things go.”  
“Sir, with all due respect-“  
“Sawamura. This isn’t negotiable. I’m sorry you didn’t get the prior warning, but you all need to pack up and go, and every Friday until the weather is good enough for the basketball team to practice outside again. They’re challenging at Nationals and we need them to train as much as possible”  
“Principal we’re on the brink of Nationals ourselves. We need the extra day and we can compete there too.”  
“Volleyball just isn’t our priority right now. I’m sorry. You can still train here four days a week. That’s plenty.”  
  
The battle was lost for Daichi and the rest of the Karasuno volleyball team, not that there was any hope of winning in the first place. They had been shafted for the schools more successful teams thanks to their slip up against Aobajousai at the last regional tournament. It wouldn’t have been a huge loss any other year, but with the malleable talent that was their current crop of first years, every moment would be vital to their development in to a side that could not only challenge at regionals but be competitive against the nation’s top sides.  
  
“Well folks, the show’s over for today at least. I’ll see you all next Monday.” Daichi’s monotonous, defeated voice perfectly summarised the downtrodden mood in the gymnasium.  
“Can’t we practice in one of the other gymnasiums? On Friday’s I don’t think the netball team uses theirs, and also-“  
“Hinata no. They don’t have the facilities we need. Just accept it and head on home. There’s nothing else here for us. I expect you all in top form on Monday. Spend some time at the gym this weekend. Don’t get complacent.”  
  
The sight of Daichi solemnly walking through the rain until he was out of sight was hard to watch for the team. It was a blatant reminder of just how passionate both he and the rest of the team really were towards making Nationals. Their determination to prove the doubters wrong was perfectly summarized by how one lost day had such a great effect on the team.  
  
A cacophony of general incomprehensible chatter mixed with the squeaking of sneakers against the gym floor and the thunderous pounding of basketballs against the floor made it hard for each member of the team to focus on their individual plans for the day now. It wasn’t the end of the world to not have their Friday practice, even if in their minds they didn’t see it that way, but it was such an ingrained staple of their day that they had little idea of what else they could be doing for the afternoon. This was particularly an issue for Yamaguchi. On a standard day, he would have his mother pick him up from practice while she was driving home from work. His house was quite the walking distance away, and he didn’t really like the idea of cycling amongst many main roads and busy pedestrian streets on the way there. In this situation, he was stranded. His options were exceptionally limited. There was the faint hope that one of his teammates was getting a ride home and he could hitch a lift home with them, or he could wait for a couple of hours for his usual pickup. The former option was far more preferable, but was seeming unlikely. Most of the team lived close by, or for some, like Hinata, they would happily cycle their way home on their own. He dug around in his bag for his phone to let his mother know in advance, before a calming and familiar voice joined a hand on his shoulder to catch his attention.  
  
“Yamaguchi, you can’t go home now, not without your mom, right?”  
“Ah, nope. I’ve gotta wait around here for ages. How unlucky, right Tsukki?”  
“Right. You don’t want to hang around here all day, do you? I had an idea. I’ve got nothing planned for the afternoon, not like anyone else does either, so you could come hang out and stay over at my place. My mom drives to work down the same way as your house, so she can give you a lift home on Saturday morning.”  
  
Yamaguchi was somewhat caught off guard by how considerate for his situation Tsukki was, but what surprised him the most was how well thought out the idea was. For five minutes of thought, it seemed relatively flawless. The only hitch being he would need permission, but that wasn’t a major issue. Yamaguchi just put it down to it being just how intuitive Tsukki really was. It was admirable, but he cared more that it was a life saver. It was a far more preferable option to lazing the afternoon away in boredom watching the basketball team practice while waiting for his mother to show up in shining armour and save him from the dreary horrors of having to kill multiple hours with no source of entertainment at his side.  
  
“Sure Tsukki! I’ll just tell my mom not to show up and we can head home, okay? Uh, head to your place. It’s not my home. Sorry Tsukki.” He laughed nervously. His excitement was showing through a little too much. Tsukki shrugged it off, seemingly not noticing, or was it not caring? Yamaguchi didn’t know, he was just glad that Tsukki wasn’t acting any different because of it. “Oh, but wait, are you able to do this every Friday? Because I’m going to have nowhere to go every Friday, and it’d be rude for me to ask you to do this every-“  
“It’s fine. We have the extra room when Akiteru isn’t around. My parents are used to catering for one extra head.”  
“Thanks Tsukki!” Yamaguchi kept his comments about how excited he was to himself. Better to just come across more thankful than needy and desperate for any sort of entertainment. Kicking around a rock in the rain would have been a step up from having to sit through the constantly active and noisy gymnasium, having to suffer through knowing that it should be him practicing on the court and not the basketball team. The pair threw their rucksacks over their shoulders and headed for the exit.  
  
Tsukki was muttering something to himself, not with any intention of it being directed to somebody, but Yamaguchi still listened in intently. “Tch, this rain is getting worse and worse. If we wait it might not get worse, but we could get soaked, Yamaguchi will only have his volleyball uniform spare if he gets wet…”  
“Oh, that’s right! I better let my parents know that I’ll need them to drop me off some spare clothes, my pyjamas, toothbrush… all that stuff. I’ll put them in my bag next week. Sorry to be an inconvenience Tsukki! “  
“Were you talking to me?”  
“Ah, never mind. I’ll call my mom and sort it out myself. How long should we wait for the rain to stop?”  
  
Tsukki looked up to the clouds. It was a blanket of grey with no signs in the distance of stopping. It seemed inevitable that they would get drenched by the dismal weather. It would be best if they sucked up their pride and came to peace with their sure-fire soaking. Tsukki was the last person who would willingly put themselves through the awful weather without a coat or an umbrella for protection, but his decision was final once a stray basketball struck the back of his leg as they overlooked the gymnasium doorway.  
  
“Let’s just get out of here quickly.” Tsukki briskly walked away, his height giving him the advantage of walking quickly. Before Yamaguchi had even had time to process the end of the conversation, he was halfway towards the school gates without Yamaguchi having given his parents the prior warning that he wasn’t going to be there waiting for them. Even at a brisk jogging pace he couldn’t keep up with Tsukki’s power walking after he had had a head start. He had to practically sprint to keep up with him. It was a struggle for him to tell where he was going running against the direction of the rain. He had no idea how Tsukki could keep it up with his glasses on certainly getting clouded with raindrops. Yamaguchi had to call out as if seemed as if Tsukki was more interested in getting home than getting home with his guest at his side.  
“Tsukki! Wait up. I need to call my parents first. Tsukki I don’t know the way to your place, slow down. Stop getting ahead. Tsukki!”


	2. Respite

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anything is a step up from the rain.

“Finally, Tsukki. How do you walk so fast? I thought I’d never catch up. I’m already soaked and we’re not even close to your place yet. I hope my bag doesn’t soak through and my training uniform is still dry so I still have something to wear. Huh, Tsukki?” 

The rain continued to pound in to the pair, ever so slightly sheltered by a row of trees at the edge of the sidewalk blocking the general direction of the rain. Yamaguchi had to swipe his bangs out of his eyes, soaked, dripping and sticking to his skin, curling over his brow in to his field of vision. He didn’t even try to comprehend how Tsukki could stroll through the rain with such a comfortable air about his walk. In the excitement of being reunited with Tsukki after a few minutes without him at his side, Yamaguchi had failed to immediately pick up that Tsukki was very absentmindedly focusing in the distance. There didn’t seem to be anything of interest. Yamaguchi couldn’t quite work out what had him so engrossed. He didn’t even think that Tsukki had heard a word of what he had said, or even realised that Yamaguchi was back at his side. 

“I walk fast? I thought I was ambling, actually.” Tsukki glanced at Yamaguchi, blank faced in shock. Had Tsukki really spent those few moments staring off at nothing to come up with a three word reply to his assorted thoughts from trying to keep up at his pace? He brushed the thoughts aside for the moment, it probably wasn’t important if Tsukki could so calmly return to conversation without losing his train of thought.

“Jeez Tsukki. You make even walking fast look easy.”  
“The less time in this rain the better.”  
“Well there’s a mochi place nearby if you want to get out of it for a little bit. I’ll buy! I kinda owe you for taking me in.”  
“I’m not taking you in. It’s not like you need me to have you over. I’m substituting two hours of your day with something slightly nicer than the gymnasium floor. You don’t owe me anything. Besides, I have plenty of money anyway.”  
“Well I’m glad you think that! Because I think I might have left my wallet in my locker. Sorry Tsukki! We’ll go next week.”  
“Like I said, I have plenty. One mochi won’t dent my finances too much. Let’s go. Anything’s better than this bastard rain.”  
“You really don’t have to Tsukki. I had a big lunch and I don’t even eat that much anyway and if I’m staying at your place there’ll be dinner won’t there? And then if-“  
“Why won’t you let me buy you a mochi?”

Yamaguchi smiled warmly. It wasn’t often that Tsukki’s genuine kindness showed through. He had spent enough time around him to know that the two legitimate bouts of kind-heartedness that he had shown to him so far today was practically an anomaly. He couldn’t even recall the last time it had happened. While he was completely thankful that Tsukki was being so nice to him, he was just a little bit more thankful that they had finally gotten out of the rain and in to the dry and snug surroundings that was the store. It had a rustic feel to it. Wooden chairs and tables that look like they wouldn’t be amiss fifty years ago, and completely contrasted the bright, high tech sheen of the refrigerated stand holding the assorted colourful mochi. It was close to empty, no surprise given the time of day. Lunch had long passed and closing was surely within the next hour. It certainly wasn’t the sort of establishment to offer dinner catering, so shutting up shop at six was not a farfetched concept. There was a lone employee in sight sitting at the cash register absentmindedly staring in the distance until the alert of the bell as the pair walked through the front door perked them up, ready to give their contrived all to what would likely be their last service of the day.

“I’ll take a strawberry, please. Yamaguchi what are you having?”  
“Ah, there’s so many that I want. There’s the chocolate, the green tea, the vanilla pudding, argh. I have no idea, uh, crap am I holding up the queue?  
“Just pick whatever. We’ll come back next week and I’ll buy a different one.”  
“Really? Thanks so much Tsukki! Oh, ah, I’ll take the chocolate one please!”

Yamaguchi could be sure that in the corner of his eye he caught Tsukki smiling. It wasn’t clear if he was just happy to be out of the rain and having a sweet treat, or if he was enjoying being kind to his friend. Without any clear explanation, Yamaguchi wanted to play pretend that Tsukki was just innocently smiling, happy to be treating his best friend. With that promise to buy him another next week, that brought the tally up to three random acts of kindness from Tsukki. In Yamaguchi’s books, that was probably a new record, and certainly one he was happy to bestow upon Tsukki in return for all the selfless favours he was doing for him today.

“Here’s your change sir, I’d suggest table 4 by the heaters. I think you need it.”  
“Right.”  
Tsukki wasn’t feeling in the mood for the cashier poking light-hearted fun at their appearance. He just wanted to finally have a chance to sit back and relax while drying off, and of course with a sweet snack to ‘replenish his energy’, his damage control for buying sweets out of the blue. The light chat over a late lunch with Yamaguchi was enough of a treat without having to supplement his happiness with mochi and the warmth of a radiator by the side of his chair. Yamaguchi dumped his bag on the top of the heat vent, sprawling his bag over as much of it as he could. By this point he didn’t care if he was soaked, he wanted his spare change of clothes to actually be wearable once they had reached their destination. 

“Why did it have to be today of all days to rain? I was fine when it was just cold. Now this. I hope my books aren’t all messed up too. And my clothes.”  
“If it’s that much of an issue some of my old kid clothes might fit you.”  
“I’d rather sit in wet clothes than sit in an ‘I’m a hugasaurus’ tee.”  
“Come on Yamaguchi. You know I don’t mean clothes from when I was ten.”

Yamaguchi was on the verge of choking on his food with laughter, infectious enough for Tsukki to join it. Their reminiscing of their childhoods was always one of the more favourable topics of discussion between the two. They had known each other for quite some time and had been through a lot together. It was easy to look back through the rose tinted glasses, snicker at their assorted mishaps, cringe with second hand embarrassment at some of the things the other had done, or just enjoy the happier memories of their childhood, and look forward to the new ones they could create in their remaining three years of school. What waited at the end was never an issue. They always had, and probably always would be at each other’s side.

“Have you seen how big you are? They’d be the only ones that fit! This wouldn’t even be an issue at home because I could just strip off.”  
“That’d be a sight to behold.”  
“Or I guess actually wear my own clothes ‘cause I’d be at my place, right?” Yamaguchi returned to his gigging happy to laugh at his own mistakes. With his head thrown back in laughter, he hadn’t quite caught Tsukki blushing, realising the context of what he had just said, followed up by some nervous chuckles to try and hide it. It seemed that Yamaguchi hadn’t picked up on it.  
“Oh you’re right, how could I not notice?”  
“Hey, I didn’t notice either. Don’t beat yourself up mister I always have to be right. Oh, crap, you must be waiting on me! I’ll finish up real quick.” Yamaguchi had noticed that before he had hardly even touched his mochi, Tsukki had devoured his.  
“It’s fine. It’s still raining and they can’t kick us out if you’re still eating. I’ll wait for you.”  
“Well you weren’t gonna leave me here stranded in the rain with no way to get home and no place to stay, right, oh mighty hugasaurus?”  
“I might if you keep up with the silly names.”  
“Sorry Tsukki!”

The hour rolled on with the two swapping anecdotes, mostly dominated by Yamaguchi with Tsukki content to listen in to what he had to say. He was learning a lot about what he got up to in his childhood before the pair met. It was hard for him to imagine that a time with Yamaguchi constantly beside him existed. It was just as hard for him to imagine what it would be like without Yamaguchi. For all the issues that Yamaguchi had had with bullies at such a tender age, his earlier childhood sounded somewhat idyllic. His family constantly around and caring for him, road trips and vacations galore. He was somewhat surprised that somebody like Yamaguchi wasn’t anywhere as close to as sheltered as Tsukki had imagined him to be. If anything, it had sounded like he had it better than he had. It made him wonder why with such a vibrant, childhood he would be subject to torment from other kids and rely so much on Tsukki for friendship. As much of a touchy subject it was, he really did feel compelled to ask Yamaguchi about why things were that way. Tsukki wasn’t exactly the most emotive speaker. It would be a challenge for him to try and ease information out of Yamaguchi in a way that wouldn’t shatter the jovial mood in the mochi store, but he was fascinated by all these new stories he had never heard before.

“Makes you wonder how somebody with such a colourful life ended up hanging around with a buzzkill like me all the time, huh?”  
“A buzzkill? No way. You were like a hero to me when we were kids. You still are sometimes.”  
“Hero?”  
“Ah! Don’t think too much in to it, it was just a bad choice of words. You’re more like, uhh. A guardian? No way that’s way too corny. Or maybe I should call you a-“  
“Oh no, you can definitely call me a hero. I quite like the title.”  
“Tsukki! It was just a slip up, don’t be a tease about it.”  
“Do you need your hero to save you from your torment?”  
“If it means taking you away then I’m all for it.”

It wasn’t the answer Tsukki wanted, but at least the situation was diffused in to an uproar of laughter like it had been before. He could probably find out another time, or at least he would hope so. Yamaguchi wasn’t a very open person unless he was completely comfortable. While he did tend to mostly reach that state of openness with in the presence of Tsukki, it was still quite the rare appearance for Yamaguchi. It certainly would be hard to find another time where he could mention his childhood bullying situation in a light-hearted way like he had tried moments ago. It was a distracting thought that kept plaguing him, but he would have to push it to the back of his mind for now.

“Tsukki, look. It stopped raining. Think we should get going or wait to dry off a little more? But what if it’s on temporary, what if we wait and it just rains again? We should get going now. I’ll just finish this off and then…” Tsukki couldn’t make out the rest of what Yamaguchi said, completely muffled by a mouthful of what was left of his mochi. Acting as if he didn’t have anything else to say after the first line, Tsukki cut him off.  
“Sure. Let’s get going. We’re only about ten minutes away from home anyway. What time is your mom planning on dropping off your stuff?”  
Yamaguchi gulped down the rest of his mochi before speaking this time. “Probably about six? She’d have to go home and pack it all up in to an extra bag first. What time is it now? 5:30, we should hurry.”  
“Ten minutes away. Yamaguchi. Ten. Actually, I probably should have told my mom that I was having a guest over.”  
“You didn’t call her? Tsukki do it now! I don’t wanna be kicked out before I even get in.”  
“Relax, we’re close enough to ask in person. Besides, my parents won’t care. Like I said before, they’ll probably just pretend like you’re Akiteru.”

Yamaguchi was noticeably letting his nervous disposition shine through. He was far from the biggest fan of going in to anything unknown, even if the risks seemed minimal. He kept running the thought through the back of his mind that Tsukki’s parents would kick him out and dump him out on the streets. It was a silly thought seeing as in a half hour his mother would be driving by to drop supplies off for him. He could just have her drop him back home. For Yamaguchi, the reasonable alternative wasn’t on his train of thought, and there really was no doubt that Tsukki’s lenient parents would let him in, but Tsukki was trying his hardest to keep him as calm as he could. With how much he had done for Yamaguchi today, going so far out of his way to save him two hours of boredom in a gymnasium, then topping it off with treats and constant positive reinforcements, Tsukki couldn’t help but think. Maybe he really was Yamaguchi’s hero.


	3. Firsts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An unexpected face puts a spanner in the works of Tsukki and Yamaguchi's night in, but for Tsukki, that's the least of his concerns.

The pavements glistened with a wet orange glow as the clouds cleared their way temporarily, revealing the sun easing its way down the horizon. Moisture laden air with the crisp, cool breeze meant that after the grey skies finally retracted, the two boys still only partially dried off had little chance of making it home in anything other than damp clothes. Each car that passed by spat water off the back of their tyres picked up on the road, slick with a thin layer of deposited rain and never drying from the constant splashing of tyres through puddles. A pocket of dark cloud loomed in the distance, but it wasn’t clear if it was coming or going. Tsukki and Yamaguchi kept up a brisk pace for the sake of not taking the chance. They just wanted to be in the warm comfort of Tsukki’s home. With each passing minute, the patch of grey rapidly transformed in to a blanket. Tsukki grumbled and without speaking picked up his walking pace yet again. Small droplets began to speckle the lens of his glasses, they were almost home but the rain was picking up again.

“Watch where the fuck you’re going jackass!” The fabric of his trousers was sticking to his skin as a stray car passing by dispersed the contents of an oversized puddle in his general direction before pulling over in front of him following his shouts of protest. Yamaguchi was yelling something slightly further behind him, not having adjusted to the new walking speed. “Shit now I’m going to get an earful from some cager. When it’s about to start fucking raining again too. Great. Look, we just want to get home before it starts raining-“  
“Good thing I’m here then.” Tsukki took a brief moment to process who was standing in front of him before Yamaguchi reappeared at his waist.  
“Hi Mom! I thought you were going to get here at about six? You’re early.”  
“Well if I don’t have to detour to pick you up from school I can get home faster and grab your stuff.”  
“I am so sorry Ms Yamaguchi I didn’t know that it was you we were just rushing in the rain and-”  
“Tsukki, I was yelling at you to slow down so she could pull over for us.”  
“Oh. I didn’t notice.”  
“Sheesh Tsukki. I knew you wore glasses but I didn’t know you were deaf too.”  
“Don’t make fun of people with glasses Tadashi.”  
“Sorry Mom.”

She chucked a rucksack towards Yamaguchi as the group clambered in to the small car. Yamaguchi rummaged around in the bag from his usual backseat spot while Tsukki called out directions to Yamaguchi’s mother in the front. Everything he had requested had been intricately packed to keep him comfortable: pyjamas, a spare set of clothes, toothbrush, and then acting on her own accord, Yamaguchi’s mother has tossed in his favourite plushie. He could only hope that he would be able to sleep without it. It wasn’t something he would particularly want Tsukki to find. On top of that was a mountain of candy, fully expecting the pair to stay up and eat like twelve year olds until the early hours of the morning. To finish it off, she had chucked in every electronic device she could find in his bedroom: a phone, an iPod, a handheld games console (although didn’t think to add any games other than the one currently inside it) and his headphones. After bringing up his forgotten wallet, Yamaguchi’s mother threw far more money than he could ever need in any sleepover scenario. Tsukki began to wonder yet again how somebody so spoiled and well cared for by his parents could end up so alone and picked on during his earlier school years. He simply couldn’t put the thoughts aside.

From the back seat of the car, the day began to feel more like a normal afternoon for Yamaguchi. He stared out the window at the sights blurred with speed, indistinguishable from their typical route home. The motion blur of the cul-de-sac was almost calming, as it felt nothing like he was heading off to spend the night with Tsukki, rather than just driving home from volleyball practice. While the usual chattering of how Yamaguchi’s day had gone had been replaced with Tsukki guiding them towards his house, it still felt like an average day. It was quite the far cry from the state of near bursting with excitement he had been experiencing up until now. Perhaps it was having his usual home comforts with him, or perhaps it was how generally kind and reassuring Tsukki had been all day. Whatever the case, at the forefront of his mind was getting out of these damned wet clothes when they arrived. 

“This is it. The third one before the end. Pull over here.”  
“Thanks mom! You’re picking me up at 10 right? Seeya then!” With a quick wave goodbye, the pair grabbed their things and waltzed to the front door, beyond pleased to finally be able to relax the day away. Tsukki practically collapsed through the front door, only to stumble in to Akiteru going between rooms.  
“Heya little bro! About time you got home. I’ll go tell mom to put dinner on. You gotta tell me how school and volleyball is going. What’s up?”  
“What are you doing here?”  
“Surprise.”  
“Yamaguchi, wait here, I’m going to talk to my mom about this…”  
“Well, Tadashi. Long-time no see. How’s things going? It feels like it’s been years since I’ve seen you. You’re so much, uh, not short now. What brings you here?”  
“Some stuff happened and Tsukki invited me to stay over.”  
“Oh no, is it serious? Whatever it is I hope you’re able to enjoy the comforts of home again soon. I get pretty homesick away at college, I know there’s nothing like your own bed…”  
“Serious? He just asked me to stay over.”  
“Oh. Oh! Oh… I didn’t know Kei was in to that sort of thing. How off character. Oh well, learn something new every day.”  
“Well today I learned that I’m not going to be sleeping in your room like the plan said.”  
“You can if you want but I warn you, I’m a cuddler.”  
“Uh…”  
“Come on, lighten up, it’s a joke. I’m sure you’d be much happier with Kei. You should probably get out of those wet clothes too. I think Kei would enjoy it.”  
“Why are you winking at me?”  
“And I thought talking to Kei was like talking to a brick wall…”  
“Yamaguchi let’s head upstairs. I worked something out.”  
“Have fun Kei. You too Tadashi. Try not to keep eachother up all night.”  
“Tsukki, why does Akiteru keep winking at me?”  
“Just ignore him. That’s how I cope with his existence.”

The two strolled upstairs after exchanging their pleasantries. Despite the sudden change in plan from ‘everything will be just like if Akiteru is here’ to ‘well, now Akiteru is here everything has fallen apart’, Tsukki had found a workaround with his mom to keep things on track. Dinner plans were on hold for a takeout this week, and they had negotiated that once Akiteru’s visit was over that next week they could move towards what they had originally planned, the pair hanging out and then Yamaguchi taking Akiteru’s room every Friday. The catch for this week, however, was that Yamaguchi was going to have to be taking the guest futon in to Tsukki’s room. It really was devolving in to a kid’s sleepover. Greasy food, candy, not sleeping and sharing a room. It wasn’t what they had in mind at first, but it worked. Anything would work as long as it finally got the point where they could get out of wet clothes that had been plaguing them for the entire day, and chill out in the warmth of the kotatsu with some fast food, Yamaguchi’s favourite of course, and waste the day away with no obligations.

Tsukki’s room was dimly lit. A lighting fixture of three bulbs hung from the ceiling, but two of them had blown and Tsukki had never bothered to have them replaced. The dim atmosphere was comfortable for him. Aside from that, his room was generally well ordered. His desk with his laptop sat snugly in one corner, his futon, usually so neatly placed halfway between the kotatsu and the wall was pushed aside to fit in Yamaguchi’s for the night. On the other side of the room, his television sat opposite the kotatsu in perfect view for Tsukki and Yamaguchi who say under the heated table in their pyjamas having spent so much time eating dinner then finishing off their homework, it was already approaching the late hours of the day. Tsukki refused to watch the television from bed at risk of his hair sticking up, still damp from having taken a shower earlier. Yamaguchi, not wanting to treat a house like a home, had not done the same, but without having spent hours practicing, there wasn’t an urgent need to. A bright flash beamed from the window and through the curtain, followed by an abnormal darkness. The lights had turned off, the television went blank, the computer shut down. The booming sound that followed reassured what both boys had assumed. With the rain having pestered them all day, thunder and lightning had joined the fray, and said lightning had knocked the power out.

“Darn it, I was enjoying that show.”  
“It was just a rerun, Yamaguchi, it’ll be on another time.”  
“Yeah I guess. So what do you want to do for fun now that the power’s killed?”  
“My iPod still had battery left. We can listen to music until the power comes back.”  
“Eugh. Boring, Tsukki! Come on, let’s have some fun, get up. The floor’s lava.” Yamaguchi hauled Tsukki on to the table with him.  
“Yamaguchi! Are you 10? Let go of me.”  
“Lighten up for once. Catch!”

Yamaguchi had thrown a pillow to Tsukki and grabbed one for himself. Tsukki had no idea what was going on as everything moved so quickly, until Yamaguchi started smacking him with the pillow. Tsukki played the pillow fight the smart way. He waited until Yamaguchi stopped, thinking that he wasn’t playing along, and then out of the blue he thumped the side of his head with the pillow, knocking him off his balance.

“You almost got me. But I’m not going in the lava! En garde!”  
“There’s no way I’m going to let you beat me. I’m too quick witted to lose so easily to an amateur like y-“ Tsukki was silenced by Yamaguchi’s pillow, knocking him aside. In a desperate attempt to not fall to defeat at the hands of Yamaguchi, he grabbed the sleeve of Yamaguchi’s pyjamas. However instead of using it to keep himself on top of the table, he completely underestimated how light Yamaguchi was, and he immediately came down crashing on top of him. Yamaguchi’s weight pinned down Tsukki by the waist, their pair’s faces within breathing distance of one another.

“Yamaguchi”  
“Yes, Tsukki?”  
“The lights are back on. Can you get off me?”  
“Huh? Oh, crap! Sorry Tsukki! I’m way too close, let me get off, don’t hate me Tsukki I didn’t mean it!”

Tsukki smiled warmly at him. Yamaguchi was so excitable, even in his incessant apologizing for something that wasn’t even his fault. Yet the thoughts from earlier couldn’t help but return to manifesting themselves in Tsukki’s mind. Was Yamaguchi so apologetic to him in fear that Tsukki might one day abandon him, and leave him with nobody? That if he ever offended Tsukki over one simple, minor thing, there would be no more friendship? All he did was land on top of him, encroaching on Tsukki’s personal space, but that had never been an issue for either of them in the past. It was like Yamaguchi had lost somebody in the past, and had a critical amount of fear that he would do it again. Tonight was meant to be a fun night though, he could at least try to put these reoccurring thoughts aside to make the best of it. Besides, they would be doing this every Friday until the gymnasium became available for practice. 

“Well actually, I’m pretty spent from that. And it looks late too. Maybe we should get to sleep.”  
“Sleep? But it’s only 11pm. Tsukki come on, we could stay up for hours doing anything!”  
“Anything?”  
“Anything. It’s not like your parents are going to interrupt a sleepover. It’s against the sleepover code Tsukki. Parents know not to interrupt their kid’s sleepovers.”  
“Well in that case… I’ve got an awesome dinosaur documentary series we can watch. 6 one hour episodes. Each one is about a different era of the dinosaurs, and they specialise on different dinosaurs from that era, there’s some boring filler stuff about ancient crocodiles and birds and stuff that were around back then, but-“  
“Okay, I get it.”  
“It’ll run until, like, five. Think you can manage?”  
“No, but let’s do it anyway!”


	4. Regret

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It was nice while it lasted.

Thin slants of light seeped their way through the horizontally hung pleated blinds that adorned the windows of Tsukki’s bedroom. The room overflowed with a warm, humid air desperate to escape, the product of its usual sleeping capacity being doubled, and with all the doors and windows shut. The two futons laying side by side hours ago had merged in to one large heap owing to the constant shuffling during sleep. The blankets overlapped in a cluster of heat pushed far enough down to cover up to the boy chests, and right in the heart of it lay Yamaguchi, face down with his arm sprawled somewhat unfortunately on top of Tsukki, who himself lay underneath him, wide awake and wondering just how he could get out of this awkward position without waking up Yamaguchi from his seemingly blissful sleep.

“He’s not grabbing me or anything, I can probably slide out,” he thought to himself. He shuffled awkwardly closer and closer to the wall, hoping to eventually squeak his way out without awakening Yamaguchi. However, as soon as he started moving, he noticed the freckled boy’s eyes opening.  
“Morning Tsukki. Tsukki? Ah, too close, sorry Tsukki! Man, this is so embarrassing, I knew I should have slept with Beary so this wouldn’t happen.”  
“Beary?”  
“Crap. I was trying to hide it so you wouldn’t know I still slept with one. I’m a joke, I’m sorry Tsukki. Please forgive me.”  
“You still have that stuffed animal I gave you, how many years ago was it, seven? Six?”  
“It’s only there because my mom put it there, I didn’t actually plan to-“  
“That means a lot to me.”  
“Right… Anyway, let’s pretend that didn’t happen, okay Tsukki?”  
“Okay.”

The pair continued on with their usual morning actions. The pair rotated bathroom usage, both taking part in the menial morning tasks of brushing teeth, showering, and in Yamaguchi’s case an abnormally long amount of time spent in the bathroom ‘jazzing himself up’ for the day, as he would tell Tsukki. Once that was all out of the way, Tsukki, first things first, would always check his phone, Yamaguchi doing the same as most things they saw online would either be seen by both of them, or it would appeal to both of their similar interest and they’d share whatever content they saw with each other. Tsukki’s first move was always social media.

“Facebook, four messages, nobody important, clickbait, clickbait, nothing worth staying around for. Instagram, people in far less clothes than I’d like to see, snapchat, snap from Akiteru, disregarded…”  
“Oh, hey, I have a snap from Akiteru too.”  
Yamaguchi opened it, his face going pale as he saw a very clear photo of him and Tsukki asleep, with Yamaguchi still unwittingly on top of Tsukki as he had been for most of the morning. ‘Cute couple’, it was captioned.  
“You look shocked, did Akiteru put a dick pick on his story by mistake like last time?”  
“No, it’s nothing worth looking at Tsukki. Just delete it.”  
“Alright then. A text from Hinata this early? What does he want…?”  
“It’s half nine. It’s not exactly early.”  
“What the hell is this supposed to mean. Wrong number? Yamaguchi, look.”

Yamaguchi’s eyes shot open with horror immediately picking up the obvious connection between what he had just seen on snapchat and what he was seeing in this text. It read ‘you two are so cute together!’ Yamaguchi was fully aware that if Tsukki were to find out that Akiteru was trying to imply that they were a couple, he would be in a downtrodden mood all morning, and Yamaguchi knew that Tsukki in a bad mood was an experience most unenjoyable.

“He probably just has the wrong number.”  
“One from Tanaka too. ‘Grats on coming out, tell Akiteru I said hi.” What the hell is going on this morning? Ah, god damn it. Hold up a second, Yamaguchi, you were shocked looking at Akiteru’s snaps and now Tanaka is talking about Akiteru. What the fuck has he done now, what was there a picture of?”  
“Really, nothing Tsukki.”  
“I’m checking for myself.”

Tsukki groaned with displeasure at Akiteru’s antics, before it quickly turned in to a scowl of sheer anger at his phone, forcefully tossing it in to the scrambled sheets, narrowly avoiding the wall and sure-fire lasting damage. He jolted in to a standing position and almost sprinted downstairs in anger at his older brother’s constant obnoxious attempts to try and be a ‘fun’ and ‘playfully friendly’ brother. It was hard on Yamaguchi watching Tsukki so enraged over minor brotherly banter. He knew that Akiteru really did care for Tsukki deep down, but Tsukki would never see it that way. Akiteru wanted to be friendly with Tsukki and go back to being somebody for Tsukki to look up to, but in Tsukki’s eyes he had done irreversible damage thanks to three years of lying and eventual betrayal. Yamaguchi pounced out of the room to catch up with Tsukki.  
“He’s just driving to the store to get some more milk for breakfast. Sit down, there’s some pancakes left, and I’ll make more when he’s back.”  
Tsukki sighed. “Fine.”

The pair were awfully quick to down breakfast. Having spent the prior evening living off the hoard of candy nestled away in Yamaguchi’s bag, they were quite content to see real food again, even if it was as sweet treat in pancakes. Amongst the general ramblings of breakfast chit-chat, the two began to settle on their plans for next week. Akiteru was set to be leaving come Sunday afternoon, so they had far more options to entertain themselves the next week, namely the fact that Akiteru’s room was where the games consoles were stashed away. It wasn’t exactly the most ideal collection of games, there were many assorted playformers and RPG’s that predated both Tsukki and Yamaguchi’s date of birth, but they were still good to play. ‘Timeless classics,’ as Akiteru would say in his constant refusal to sell them and do something better with his free time than collect classic games, an idea his parents constantly tried to force. Amongst that was some more modern shooters for newer consoles for the sake of keeping with the times that were more like what Tsukki was accustomed to. Yamaguchi was more of a fan of adventures than shooters, but next week it would do, he just enjoyed playing with Tsukki, even if he lost repeatedly.

The sound of a revving engine came to an abrupt halt just outside the front door. Akiteru had gotten home. While he was still only half through the door, he was immediately greeted by Tsukki and a passive aggressive “Hello, Akiteru.” Akiteru thought little of it and politely gave a “Good morning!” back, heading off to the kitchen to unbag and put away the groceries. Tsukki followed along behind him, making a determined effort to immediately make a case for how Akiteru was trying to destroy his life over something as minor as a joke photo. The emaciated bond the two shared diminished more and more with each passing day, and with little signs of improving. It was as if nothing Akiteru could do could please Tsukki. Without saying a word, Akiteru went back to the empty living room, flicking on the TV to waste the morning away, but Tsukki continued to follow him like a ghostly apparition, eventually pinpointing the moment to speak up now that Akiteru was alone.

“Why are you always trying to make my life worse?” Tsukki’s voice was teeming with venom.  
“Kei?”  
“What the fuck is wrong with you?”  
“I… I don’t know what you’re talking about.”  
“Do you know how many people have been texting me thanks to your shitty joke, thinking Yamaguchi and I are dating?”  
“I only sent it to you.”  
“No, you didn’t, you sent it to everyone. Why am I not surprised you’re lying to me again. You’re just fuck up after fuck up sometime, Akiteru, why do you keep putting me through this?”  
“I’m not trying to Kei, I just-“  
“You just what, Akiteru? What miserable excuse do you have this time? You’re ‘trying to protect me’ from something that’s not a risk at all? You do it ‘because you care’, and that’s why you’re constantly making my life worse with everything you do? What is it?”  
“I’m just happy for you, that you have somebody as close to you as Yamaguchi. I thought you’d appreciate just a little joke, I didn’t mean to accidentally send it out to everyone…”  
“Why can’t you just stay out of my life?”  
“Kei, we’re brothers.”  
“So? Yamaguchi Is more like family to me than you are.”  
“Kei…”  
“Don’t you get it? I don’t like you, Akiteru, you’re a joke. Why should I care about family if they’re as pathetic as you?”  
“You don’t mean that, Kei, come on…”  
“Stay out of my life.”

Tsukki was too sick of seeing Akiteru’s face to stay behind in the living room and watch as tears began rolling down his cheeks as he finally gave Akiteru the final verdict that had been building up for years and years. He headed back to the kitchen, trying to suppress his anger to keep himself presentable for Yamaguchi, only to find that he wasn’t there. He stormed up stairs, expecting to see him packing his things ready for his mother to pick him up, but everything had been neatly arranged, and all of Yamaguchi’s possessions that he had brought with him for the night were gone. Struggling to keep his growing sense of frustration repressed, Tsukki stormed down the stairs, his feet striking each step, the floorboards rhythmically clapping like thunder.

“Mom, where did Yamaguchi go?”  
“His mother picked him up. How rude of you to let him go on his own without saying goodbye. What could have been so important that you ignore your guest?”  
“God damn it.”  
“Language, Kei.”

Tsukki darted back upstairs to grab his phone off its charger. First and foremost, he would immediately have to call Yamaguchi to apologize. More than anything, he hoped that Yamaguchi didn’t listen in on the brother’s argument, but he knew that it must have been above and beyond awkward and even intimidating for Yamaguchi to be sitting alone and waiting for his mother to pick him up. Processing these thoughts, Tsukki realised that Yamaguchi must have heard. He wouldn’t have left without saying goodbye if he didn’t realise what was going on. He felt like an idiot. He let a petty heat of the moment argument over almost nothing escalate in to something immense, and then scared his best friend off without him wanting to say goodbye. Tsukki waited and waited, but Yamaguchi didn’t pick up. He tried twice, a third time, a fourth, longing to hear Yamaguchi’s voice on the other end to apologize for his own stupidity, but nothing. He had to settle for a lone, solemn text.

“I’m sorry”


	5. Apologies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Happiness is but a temporary mask that shields the unsuspecting from our recurring, underlying sorrows.

It was a miserable Saturday at the Tsukishima residence. On one hand, Akiteru lay motionless and devastated buried under a mountain of blankets and sheets in his bedroom, wondering why no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t be a better brother in Tsukki’s eyes. On the other, Tsukki’s day had also been reduced to laying solemnly in bed. A barrage of missed calls filled up Yamaguchi’s inbox as Tsukki had been consistently trying to get him to pick up his phone so he could apologize, but each and every time, the same result: no answer. It was incredibly arduous for Tsukki to constantly check his phone every few minutes, seeing if he had a text from Yamaguchi, or deciding to call, but in his eyes, it was necessary. Tsukki would practically enter a state of meltdown if he had to deal with the assorted stresses of school combined with making amends with Yamaguchi thanks to his own irrational behaviour that Saturday morning. It would make for a rough Monday for Tsukki and an exceptionally unpleasant experience for all those who would have to suffer through his abject misery that day.

When dinner rolled around, it was abnormally quiet at the dinner table. Tsukki was far from talkative, and the only point of discussion was Tsukki’s father, now home from work, enquiring as to why Akiteru was no joining them for dinner. He was cut off by a silent, assertive shake of the head from Tsukki’s mother. He immediately knew not to press any further. Content with his time spent in the barren, downbeat atmosphere of the dining room, Tsukki immediately rushed back to his bedroom, hoping that in the half hour spent eating Yamaguchi had tried to make contact, but again, nothing. The best course of action was to take his mind off the drama that had unfolded earlier in the day and sleep, sleep through the Saturday, sleep through as much of the Sunday as he could, just stay in the company of himself, only emerging for the absolute essentials. With tensions so high in their home, it was best for everyone to keep their distance until it cooled off.

* * *

Monday made its presence known with the usual uncomfortably pitched beep of an alarm clock. The red glow of the primitive looking digital clock made it hard to see the time, although it was obvious for Tsukki that it was buzzing at his regular 6:30 wake up time. The bland morning rituals of an average Monday morning to prepare for school ate up any free time Tsukki would have in the morning, but he still found the time to check if Yamaguchi had made even the slightest attempt to talk to him, but again, nothing. He really was starting to believe that he had immeasurably fucked up their relationship. Yamaguchi was so frequently worried thinking of how Tsukki might react or turn on him if he ever did something that he didn’t approve of. Seeing Tsukki so violently shouting at Akiteru, telling him with so much venom that he didn’t want him around in his life anymore, it must have instilled so much fear in to Yamaguchi that he didn’t want to be anywhere near Tsukki until he knew that he had cooled off completely. Tsukki was just desperate for communication. 

The walk to school felt like it could have gone on for hour. It was a far cry from what felt like the most pleasant of trips between his house and school with Yamaguchi last Friday. Every step felt like he was gaining no ground at all. Tsukki would have been content to do nothing that day if he didn’t so desperately need to make sure that things were still okay with Yamaguchi. When he arrived at school, his almost pavlovian response narrowly avoided causing him embarrassment as he walked up to his locker, expecting to see Yamaguchi and immediately blurt out ‘good morning, Yamaguchi’, only for him to not be there. He really must have been upset to be hanging around elsewhere in the fifteen minute period of grace before classes began. Yet when Tsukki sat down for his first period, his movements as punctual as the bell that rang as he entered the room, he noticed the seat next to him was also empty. Yamaguchi hadn’t shown up at all. Yamaguchi was a relatively fit and healthy kid, he couldn’t remember a single date where Yamaguchi had missed class out of sickness, even when feeling somewhat under the weather, he would grit his way through the school day. He didn’t have a single tardy to his name at the fear of his parents executing him as soon as he showed even the slightest sign of faltering in any aspect of his school life. 

Just as Tsukki began to ponder just how much he could have compromised his relationship with Yamaguchi to the point where he was skipping the Monday morning classes to avoid him, the only barely shut class door was barged open. None other than Yamaguchi stood in the doorway, sweat running down his forehead and panting.  
“Sorry I’m late, sir.” There’s a first time for everything.  
“Good morning. I’m sorry about Friday.”  
While Tsukki had hoped that he would be met with Yamaguchi replying with ‘it’s okay’, he didn’t even bat an eye in his general direction. The words he so desperately desired to hear were substituted with the hoarse voice of his teacher telling them to pipe down at the back during class.  
“You have all of lunch, all of after school to talk. Don’t interrupt my classroom with something that isn’t important.”

As much as Tsukki would have liked to give his teacher an earful about how incredibly important having a one to one with Yamaguchi would be, he felt it would be for the best to not become a young anarchist and rebel against the teacher for something that admittedly could wait an hour for the period to end and the pair to split off between classes. That didn’t stop Tsukki from at least trying when the teacher wasn’t paying attention. He spent most of the class trying to get Yamaguchi’s attention, yet every word he spoke and every action he performed to try and make him notice him, he was met with Yamaguchi rolling his eyes, both wanting to get on with class, and wanting Tsukki to stop. He was able to get the teachers message that they should be able to wait at least a few more minutes to talk, but Tsukki seemed to just ignore his teachers desires in an excitable, yet desperate attempt to apologize to Yamaguchi.

“Tsukishima. Principles office. Now. I warned you to be quiet, and if you’re not going to listen to me, perhaps you’ll listen to somebody who has the grounds to suspend you.”  
“But Sir-“  
“I made it clear I don’t want to hear you speak quite some time ago. Now go to the principal’s office before I bring the principal’s office to my class. And I’d rather not disrupt the people here who are interested in learning something this morning. Alright?”  
“Yes Sir.”

Tsukki sat alone in a deserted corridor, his only company was the rickety old cushion chair he sat on, torn and tattered from years of students impatiently waiting to be scolded by the principal. Each minute felt like an eternity with no external source of entertainment as he wallowed in his misery, his Monday getting off to about as terrible a start as is humanly possible. Eventually, the obnoxious ringing of the school bell lead to flood of hundreds of students passing by him in the corridor going between classes, the occasional few staring at him, wondering what he had done to get sent to the office. He stuck out. He was never one to be reprimanded by his teachers, he was a fine student who got on in every class. As the hallways thinned out in their human traffic and the sound of a thousand footsteps pounding the floor dulled, there was one motionless figure standing upright in the hallways amongst the constant motion of those around them. When the crowd had whittled its way down to a few stragglers, it became very clear who it was.

“Tsukki, you’re such an idiot sometimes.”  
“Yamaguchi! Finally. I’ve been trying to tell you I’m sorry for so long and-“  
“No kidding. Eleven missed calls, your constant bugging me in class today, and a single text message with no replay that says “I’m sorry”. I had no idea you were trying to apologize. Maybe I was trying to wait until class was over so you wouldn’t get kicked out? Did you think of that, huh?”  
“No…”  
“Of course you weren’t thinking. So I accept.”  
“What?”  
“I accept your apology. You wouldn’t be so blindly and desperately trying to tell me so if you didn’t really mean it.”  
“Thank you“  
“But I don’t know if I’m the one who needs an apology the most.”  
“I get it, I messed up with Akiteru, I don’t need everyone to keep reminding me.”  
“Yes, Tsukki. You do. You were so close before, I don’t want to see you cut each other out of your lives because I know that deep down you care for him like you care for me, like a brother, as you so generously put it.”  
“Oh… Right, that was a thing I said.” 

Tsukki had to pause for a moment to realise that everything he said, Yamaguchi had heard it. He considered the best course of action was to brush it off, plan to apologize to Akiteru and change the topic before things got any more sentimental than it had any right to be at 10am on a Monday morning.  
“And, uh, sorry I was bugging you in class too.”  
“It’s fine. We didn’t do anything after you got kicked out.”  
“Speaking of getting kicked out…”  
An aggressive opening, followed by slamming of a door echoed through the now deserted corridors. The principal was not in the mood to be dealing with rowdy students this morning.  
“Which one of you is Tsukishima?”  
“I am, Sir.”  
“You, who are you?”  
“Yamaguchi Tadashi”  
“Am I supposed to be seeing you?”  
“No Sir”  
“Then get back to class. Tsukishima, get in to my office.”  
“Yes Sir.”

* * *

Once again reunited after the scuffle that was their weekend, Tsukki and Yamaguchi felt mentally tough enough for practice that Monday evening, not as if slacking off was ever an option with the entire team so desperate to make Nationals at the next attempt. Even from the outside they could hear the usual squeaking of shoes against the varnished wooden floors, and the powerful thudding of a well hit spike hitting the ground. The pair walked up to the doors somewhat adamantly, hoping nobody would catch on that something had been up and try to make a big deal out of it. Practice wasn’t even the main topic of discussion as they went on towards practice. Idle chit-chat set the mood for how generally lacking in enthusiasm they were towards exerting themselves, but it had to be done and done well.  
“Yeah, just this Friday during class. I’ll still be up for you to come over in the evening though. You know the way right?”  
“Yeah, I know. How come you have to go to the dentist anyway?”  
“Too much sugar they said. Bullshit. I’ve seen Hinata eating candy and only candy for lunch and he’s never had an issue with cavities.”  
“Maybe it’s just bad luck. Better get it over and done with though. I’m so happy that I stopped putting off getting braces when I was younger because I was scared of dentists.”  
“Hey, are you saying I’m afraid? I’m not afraid.”  
“No, Tsukki! I’m just saying that I was. But I got over it and it stopped being a problem!”  
“And you look so much better thanks to it.”  
“Right! Yeah, I do.” 

Yamaguchi stuttered out the response unconfidently while opening the gym door. Tsukki was being abnormally nice again. As soon as they had entered the gym, they were greeted by the usual troublesome pair that so frequently riled Tsukki up, constantly testing his patience.  
“Hey! It’s the happy couple!”  
“Heeeeere comes the bride!”  
“Good afternoon to you, Tanaka, Noya, might I ask what the fuck is wrong with you today?”  
“What’s wrong with us? What’s wrong with you? Needing your big bro to tell us the good news.”  
Tsukki paused for a brief moment of reflection. “Oh for fucks sake. This again.”  
“Tsukki, calm down, we’re over it.” Yamaguchi tried to be the voice of reason.  
“No, no I fucking knew this shit would happen. Maybe you’re over it, maybe you made me think I was over it earlier, but no, I god damn knew that Akiteru was just making fucking everything in my life worse.”  
“Ryuu am I missing something here?”  
“I don’t know, Yuu.”  
“Look, sorry to break the news to you, but I don’t like Yamaguchi.”  
“Y-you don’t like me?”  
“No, I do like you, Yamaguchi  
“I knew it bro, they’re totally gay for each other.”  
“No! For fucks sake, I like Yamaguchi, but I don’t, like, I just, not the way you’re saying it. Just, fuck this I’m not in the mood for this shit today. Fucking Akiteru. Fuck you guys. God damn it.”

Tsukki charged his way out of the gymnasium almost as quickly as he had entered it. After spending the entire weekend collecting his thoughts in to one bundle, concentrated down in to an afterthought that couldn’t bug him anymore, the foundations that held it all together came down with a roaring crash. The brief reprise of having made up with Yamaguchi and enjoying the afternoon classes could hardly cushion the fall damage as all of his issues from that Saturday returned to him, he was still furious at Akiteru, he was still angry at himself for letting his problems become an issue for everyone around him. Back inside the gym, the team had made their concerns for Tsukki public. Yamaguchi had taken the decision to explain the situation to everyone so they could try to find a way to help him.

“He had a huge fight with his brother because of that one picture Aki all sent you as a joke. It wasn’t anything serious, but he got so beat up about it. You know how he is with his brother.”  
“How bad was the fight?” Sugawara would always be the first to try and better understand the situation for his own benefit and the benefit of all those involved.  
“He told him he didn’t want him in his life.”  
“Oh, that’s… explosive to say the least. I’ll talk to him. Everyone stay here. I don’t want a one to one ruined by nosey teammates.”  
Having taken on a mission with an almost guaranteed failure rate, Sugawara calmly yet confident exited the gymnasium to find Tsukki standing outside, leaning against the wall with one arm resting on it, staring at the ground. His face was a puzzle of emotions that Sugawara couldn’t solve without having to engage conversation and at least try to help him out.

“Tsukki…”  
“What”  
“Yamaguchi told us what’s wrong, we really want to help you-“  
“Oh, oh of fucking course he did. Why can’t anybody just understand that I don’t want them meddling in my life? I’m in control of my own actions. I’m in control of who I want to and do not want to be friends with, have relationships with, whatever. I am in control. I don’t need other people trying to help me. For how much time Yamaguchi spends apologizing to me over fucking nothing, you’d think he could learn to apologize when he fucks up like he did now. I do not need your help.”  
The team was listening in. The gym doors had been left open, and every word that Tsukki shouted out echoed through the gymnasium, even from just outside the door. Yamaguchi had to fight every urge in his body to stop himself from running out and trying to save the situation by himself, but he knew that Tsukki was unbearable when he was in this state. All he could do was feel horrible guilt over how Tsukki was going to treat Sugawara.  
“We just want to help, that’s all. If you need us, we’re here.”  
“I Don’t. You don’t fucking understand.”  
“I’d understand better if you told me about it.”  
“You want me to tell you about it? I feel fucking betrayed. I feel betrayed by Akiteru, constantly in every little thing he does. He betrayed me in volleyball. He betrayed me as family. Everything he does is just one disappointment after another and it drives me while. Yamaguchi is betraying me by sharing my personal problems around the entire team when you have asshats like Tanaka and Nishinoya on the team who’ll pick out and laugh at every little thing you do-“  
“Tsukki, I can guarantee that they won’t tease you over this.”  
“Don’t fucking speak while I’m speaking to you. My entire life feels like I’m constantly stabbed in the back by people I’m supposed to care about. Why should I care about all these people constantly fucking me over? You should share the sentiment. You know all about betrayal. Your big final year and your captain and coach don’t even fucking let you play because of some selfish first year who’s only in it for himself. Shouldn’t you feel like everyone you care about is betraying you by encouraging it too? You’ve got it just as badly as I do and you’re here faking this nice guy attitude all the god damn time, and it sickens me. Look around you, Sugawara, the world is shit and you’re lying to yourself if  
“Tsukki, it’s not an act, I genuinely care about you, and we all do”  
“I don’t give a shit!”  
“Well I don’t care if you don’t, we want to help you. There’s something wrong. We’re a team, we care about every other member of the team. A team is only as strong as its weakest link-“  
“Oh, so I’m a weak link now?”  
“If you keep acting like this, yes! We care about you, don’t you care about us? All we’re trying to do is make you happy, and you’re not letting us!”  
“Go fuck yourself.”  
“Tsukki! Get back here and don’t treat this like you’re still a five year old.”  
“I’m done with all of you. I’m getting out of this toxic shithole while I still can.”

Tsukki grabbed his bag and sprinted off, Sugawara made no attempt to try and catch him or continue this any further. Tsukki had made it clear that there was something hugely wrong in his life that he needed to overcome, and really, there was nothing anybody on the team would have been able to do to help. Not even Yamaguchi would be able to talk Tsukki in to being calm at this moment. It was best to let him go, vent his frustrations and hope that he’s in a better mood in the future. Sugawara didn’t even want an apology, he just wanted Tsukki to not go through with his closing statement and come back to the team.

“You all heard that.”  
“Suga, don’t listen to him, I swear we’re not betraying you or denying you your moment by not having you start in every game, and-“  
“Come on, Daichi, this isn’t about me right now. Yamaguchi-“  
Sugawara glanced around the room to find the freckled boy. He was sitting in a heap against the wall, his head in his hands. He could try to hide that he was crying, he could try to hide the fact he was on the verge of a panic attack, but the entire team could see it as clear as day that Yamaguchi was completely distraught.  
“Yamaguchi…”  
“This is all my fault, Tsukki hates me. Tsukki hates everyone because of me. I knew this would happen. This is all my fault and now Tsukki doesn’t have anyone and now I don’t have anyone and it’s all because of me and my stupid mouth!”  
“Yamaguchi, please calm down, it’s not your fault, there’s obviously something big and underlying that’s making Tsukki act so irrationally.”  
“And it’s my fault! He hates Akiteru because of that one picture and he hates me because I started talking and everything I feared is happening and I just can’t take it anymore. I need to text him. I need to call him. I need to say I’m sorry.”  
“Are you sure you should be talking to him right now?”  
“Yes! Every time I apologize to Tsukki thigs are the fine and the one time I don’t he gets so mad, it’s all my fault, I can fix it, oh, where’s my phone, there it is!”  
Yamaguchi immediately rushed through his password and straight in to his messages, knowing that Tsukki wouldn’t pick up, so he texted him instead. On his screen, he was greeted with the last message that Tsukki had sent to him without response, dated Saturday morning. 

* * *

Sat, 10:04. Kei: I'm sorry.  
Mon, 15:41. Tadashi: I'm sorry too. Please come back. I miss you.


	6. Turbulence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's a time and a place for rational thoughts, if only we had the choice to choose it.

Practice had come to a close, and until Yamaguchi’s mother had arrived to pick him up, nobody had batted an eyelid at the idea of something being wrong when Yamaguchi had stormed out of practice. Having desperately tried to communicate with Tsukki by call and by text, he had rushed himself in to a bigger panic than before, darting out of practice. Whether it was to go somewhere and calm down, or whether it was to aimlessly try and find Tsukki to talk to him himself, Suga had told the team that for their own benefit, it was best to just leave them to sort their issues out. This made things complicated, as now Yamaguchi was nowhere to be seen at his regular pickup time, and his mother was doing her best to not yell at the team for letting Yamaguchi run off while in a panic, that by now they should know that his anxiety should be dealt with delicately, but they were just naïve kids who didn’t know how to deal with a worked up Yamaguchi.

“It’s not the first time he’s tried to run away from something like this.” She seemed resigned to having to play fetch for her son rather than having to actively look for him. “There’s one place he always goes whenever something’s up with him. I’m sure he’ll be there.” Leaving the rest of the kids at practice to go about their usual trip homes, she made her way back to the car to zip off to, what was in her mind, the obvious place for Yamaguchi compose himself. The drive felt like it was taking an eternity. Motherly instinct kicked in even though she had the utmost confidence that Yamaguchi was safe and sound. Each song that came out of the radio speakers felt like it had been intentionally chosen to help ease up the already melancholy filled atmosphere in the car. Every small spittle of rain slowly appearing on the windscreen felt like a desperate attempt from the earth to try and stop her, and as it picked up in to raindrops pounding the glass, she couldn’t stop the immediate reflex to pick up speed to help get Yamaguchi out of the weather and somewhere calm and stress free for him to settle in. She pulled to a screeching halt as, as expected, she saw Yamaguchi leaning against a tree nestled in its designated part of the pavement, opposite to a brick wall. At that time of day, it was a relatively inactive area, there was hardly a face for miles. Understandable, it was 5pm and Yamaguchi was sitting outside of the walls of his old grade school. At least he was partially sheltered from the oncoming weather.

“I had a feeling you’d be here. What happened this time?” She looked at the surroundings, before flicking her eyes towards the bark of the tree. She saw etched in to the wood the one sign that makes this place so comforting to Yamaguchi. In clear, carved letters, it read ‘Tsukki+Yama BFFs’. It always brought a smile to Yamaguchi’s mothers face to see.  
“Tsukki hates me.”  
“He hates you, or he got mad at you once?”  
“He hates me.” His mother sighed. It wasn’t even the slightest bit abnormal for Yamaguchi to exaggerate while going through any sort of issue in his life. He didn’t have the composure to think rationally. He just sat in fear, running through every possible outcome that could happen after he had caused Tsukki to be in a bad mood. No matter what he thought up, he always focused and dreaded the absolute worst case scenarios that his mind could conjure: Tsukki would never talk to him, Tsukki would end up turning on him, and Tsukki would turn in to the bullies that plagued his life before he met Tsukki. Every outcome was a potential nightmare waiting to happen, and he had absolutely no intent of looking at things in a positive light. That was just the nature of his panic attack. 

“Tadashi.” Hearing his name called, Yamaguchi’s gaze, formerly fixated at that one spot on the bark of the tree he was leaning against moments ago, directed towards his mother. “You’ve been through so many little spats with Tsukishma before. And every time, he’s come back, what makes you think this time will be any different?”  
“He was blaming me and now he hates the team and it’s all because of me“  
“Remember when you accidentally knocked Tsukishima’s dinosaur toy in to the river, and he ran home crying, and didn’t come out when you called for three days?”  
“Yeah.”  
“And he still didn’t hate you. Remember when he had to sit summer school during his senior year in middle school because you accidentally gave him the wrong dates for his finals, and you didn’t meet up all summer because of it?”  
“Yeah…”  
“And he didn’t hate you. You’ll see him in class tomorrow morning, and chances are, he’ll apologize. If he doesn’t, he’ll do it the next day. He cares for you, and you care for him. Even if it seemed bad now, in a few weeks, months, it’ll be irrelevant. You’ll look back at it and laugh in a few years’ time. It’ll all be alright.”  
“Are you sure? I think I really-“  
“I’m sure, Tadashi.” She looked around, the rain was beginning to pick up and the sides of the grey interior that adorned the front seat began to darken with the dampness as rain seeped its way through the open door. “Now, let’s get out of here before we end up drenched.”  
“Okay.” The pair hopped inside the vehicle, Yamaguchi taking a back seat to avoid the now somewhat damp shotgun seat.  
“Now where do you want to go to eat to bring up your mood?”  
“Is fast food okay? With fries?” Yamaguchi perked up. Free food, whatever he wanted.  
“Whatever you want, sweetie. I don’t mind. Let’s go.”

* * *

The clouds refused to clear a path for sunshine come Tuesday morning. The air was damp with the light drops of rain that refused to come down with any real momentum, and alternated with the odd shower once or twice an hour. The weather had hardly ceased to be dismal for nearly a week at this point. It was to be expected that there would be little sunshine around the late stages of winter, but with spring on the horizon, surely it would at least pave some way for the brightness to return. It did nothing to help with any student’s motivation. For Tsukki and for Yamaguchi, getting out of bed was a chore in its own right. Neither particularly wanted to face the other following the altercation the day before, and yet, both desperately craved the chance to speak with the other. It was a paradox both wished to get out of the way at their earliest convenience.

As per the norm, Yamaguchi arrived at school first, preparing his books and such at his locker for the day. Typically, Tsukki would arrive at this point and the pair would chat for a while. Yamaguchi wasn’t too shocked when Tsukki didn’t. Yamaguchi didn’t particularly want their confrontation to be just before a long and arduous day of classes. He could talk to Tsukki at lunch. While he had thought practice would work, he glanced back with slight horror knowing that it was very likely that Tsukki would be avoiding that entirely. What a huge blow to the team. He kept flicking his thoughts back to the words his mother reassured him with the evening before. “You’ll see him in class tomorrow, and he’ll apologize. And if he doesn’t, he’ll do it the next day.” It was somewhat calming, but as he sat in class, five minutes before the bell, four minutes, three, eventually the bell rang, and Tsukki still wasn’t present. The seeds of doubt had been sown in to his mind, and as class moved in to the early minutes, one, two, five, ten, Tsukki still not present, these grizzly thoughts began to blossom. Despite his mother’s best efforts the previous afternoon, he was constantly reminding himself that Tsukki wasn’t present because of him. It was his fault, or so he thought. He thought that Tsukki was skipping class and he didn’t want to be with him anymore. How ironic, given Tsukki sat in the exact same position on Monday morning.

Time went on, and fifteen minutes in to class, Yamaguchi effectively snapped. His heart rate shot up, everything around him became irrelevant unless it was in direct contact with him. He started unzipping his jacket feeling overly warm, as if it was constricting his entire being, desperate to break free. Each thump of his heart against his chest felt stronger and stronger as if it was desperate to burst out on its own accord. Light-headedness set in, his stomach ached, ever movement felt like it had been riveted shut and his body was trying to rip it apart. He was in agony, the fear flowing through his body yet again, all the negative thoughts he had had returned in one sweeping blow to his mind. He was desperate to be free of them, but no matter what he tried to hell himself, he couldn’t escape thinking of the doom and gloom of the situation in all its sheer irrationality. His body, completely tense did everything in its power to try and distract itself, he was so eager to try and get up and go, he wanted the world around him to plunge in to darkness so he could be alone and safe, even if it meant being alone with his own toxic thoughts. Anything would be a step up from being stuck in class, panic shooting through his entire body. He felt empty and hollow yet overwhelmed with emotion all at once, until he was forced to click back in to reality as a voice aggressively called his name. “Yamaguchi, Yamaguchi? Are you falling asleep in my class, Yamaguchi? Stay alert or I’ll be forced to kick you out.” Yamaguchi thought to himself, ‘kick you out, kick you out, kick you out’, it was exactly what he needed right now. Without thinking, he acted on impulse, darting out of his seat and through the door in to the corridors looking for anywhere he could be alone and safe to deal with his demons himself. He dashed down the hallway, his teacher peeking his head out of the door, calling his name to get back, but he didn’t. He darted around the corner and out of sight of his teacher, only to immediately crash in to a tall wall of a human in the hallway. Silently getting up and planning to dash away, tears streaming down his face and unwilling to focus on what had just occurred, he wanted to get away, apologies were the least of his concern, until he looked up what he had crashed in to, and stood looking on in shock and horror as if he had been visited by an apparition.  
“Tsukki?”


	7. Selflessness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "A true hero is one who prioritizes the good of those around them, no matter the cost."

“You’re in a rush.” Tsukki stood tall, seemingly unfazed by Yamaguchi crashing in to him. His figure stood as imposing as ever as Yamaguchi stood startled in front of him, struggling to process that it was Tsukki in front of him, that he wasn’t hallucinating.   
“You’re not supposed to be here. You’re supposed to be at home because you’re angry at me. Why are you here? Why are you talking to me? You hate me, you can’t talk to somebody you hate, why aren’t you ignoring me?” With each word Yamaguchi spat out, confused and emotional, it became increasingly clear to Tsukki that Yamaguchi had drilled himself in to a panic attack, instilled with fear that their argument the day before had ruined nearly a decade of friendship between the two. He didn’t have any time whatsoever to try and keep up the charade of being grumpy and upset at everyone around him. He recognized his faults, he know this situation was caused by his own lack of control over his emotions, and Tsukki had to put it all aside because in this moment, he realised just how much of an effect if was having on Yamaguchi. He couldn’t stomach seeing him worked up in to such a mess of negative thoughts, he had to act quickly to reassure him and calm him. Regardless of how many arguments they had, what Yamaguchi’s mother had been saying held true. No matter what happened, Tsukki cared about Yamaguchi. His happiness, his wellbeing, his life, every aspect of his existence was, in Tsukki’s eyes, his duty to keep happy. That’s what a best friend would do.

“I don’t hate you.”   
“Yes you do!”  
Yamaguchi’s thoughts were so plagued with the hardwired idea that Tsukki despised his very existence that even as Tsukki told him that things were ok, that it would all be fine, he couldn’t bring himself to believe it. He wanted to believe it with every ounce of his soul, but his mind was so perplexed by the entire situation that it failed to think logically. Tsukki knew he was up against a mountain of odds to try and get Yamaguchi to see straight about the situation, but he continued in his pursuit for Yamaguchi’s happiness.  
“I overreacted. Yamaguchi, I-“  
“No you didn’t! You’re right to hate me, it’s my fault you hate me and hate the team and never want to play volleyball again!”  
“Never want to play again? But Yamaguchi, I’m going to play this evening. Once I apologize to everyone. Because it was my fault. Because I overreacted. Because people tried to help me and I turned them away, and I know that they were doing it because they care about me.”  
“But-“  
“But what? If people care about you, they’ll try to help you. Just like I’m trying to do right now. Haven’t you learned by now that nothing you do can make me hate you?”  
“…”  
“Come on, Yamaguchi. If I hated you, would I be apologizing? Would I be sucking up my pride and telling you it’s all my fault? You did nothing wrong Yamaguchi. You got more people to try and help me.”  
“But you got so angry at them all.”  
“I called Sugawara and apologized this morning. He’s having me apologize to the entire team this afternoon. Do you still think I hate you? That I don’t care?”  
“I… I don’t know.”  
“I care about you, Tadashi.”  
“Tadashi…” As soon as Yamaguchi had made a point of what Tsukki said, his face immediately became fully flushed with redness as his blushing spread across his face. It was sentimental, it was well meaning, and surprisingly affectionate for somebody who typically come across as rather cold and distant with their thoughts and emotions. It was a brief change in character that immediately had helped to stifle the nerves that were bound to Yamaguchi’s mind. “Well I care about you too, Kei.” Tsukki couldn’t believe how Yamaguchi could intentionally speak like that without any sort of reaction. Tsukki couldn’t contain his incessant blushing from the moment he had spoken, let alone when Yamaguchi had said the same back to him.

“Well, anyway, let’s get you home… You must be pretty exhausted after all that.” Tsukki started walking towards the principal’s office, Yamaguchi almost skipping behind him, a new burst of excitable energy running through his body. Their Friday arrangement seemed to be pushed forward to this Tuesday, although in this case, the pair were to spend the day at Yamaguchi’s house, providing they could find a way to bluff the principal in to letting them go home. As they moved quickly towards the office, they heard an unfortunately familiar voice obnoxiously shouting their names from behind.  
“Tsukishima. What the hell are you two doing? Skipping my class? After being kicked out yesterday? And Yamaguchi, what has gotten in to you. You’re normally so reserved and now you have this… this… outburst in my classroom? What is going on with you two?”  
The best solution was to be honest. Their teacher, while being a cranky human being, was typically understanding, and very favourable towards two students who are typically quiet, attentive and towards the top of the class grades wise.   
“I was late sir, and I bumped in to Yamaguchi in the hallway on my way to class and-“  
“It was all my fault, Sir. I… had a panic attack in class because of some issues that came up in my life, Tsukki didn’t do anything wrong, he was just late.”  
“You shouldn’t be in school. I’ll set you up an appointment with the counsellor. Go home for today. Tsukishima, get back to class so I can fill in your tardy note.”  
“Can’t I go with him, Sir?”  
“Why would you?”  
“Well, because, ah…”  
“Because Tsukki has been my best friend for so long, he’s the only person here who knows how to help me when I’m like this!”  
“Can’t your parents do something about it?”  
“They’re at work. They can’t come and pick me up unless it’s an absolute emergency and if I have Tsukki here, it’ll be fine.”  
“If you insist. Come with me to the office and we’ll get you permission to leave.”

As they dawdled behind their teacher in the hallways, Tsukki immediately waiting until the teacher was slightly further forward before whispering excitedly in to Yamaguchi’s ear. “Nice one, Yamaguchi, I thought he wouldn’t let me go.”  
“Yamaguchi? I thought you were calling me Tadashi only a minute ago.”  
“Shut up!” His whisper broke out in to a full on shout, not happy to have given Yamaguchi any fuel to tease him. He knew he shouldn’t have let himself react so embarrassed by his own words, even if he had no control over his reaction.  
“Relax, I’m kidding. Although I thought you were going to stay back to apologize to the team?”  
“They’ll be here all week. I’ll do it tomorrow. Today’s for having a nice, easy, relaxing and fun day to make up for all the drama that’s been happening this week.” Tsukki’s main concern was what plans they would even make. What could they do for hours that would convince their family at home that they had gotten out of school for something serious and not just because they didn’t feel like school today? He drilled his mind, hoping to tap in to a well of ideas, but nothing was to be found. By the time they were standing outside of the principal’s office while their teacher had a word with him, he hadn’t even the faintest idea of what they could do. When their teacher re-emerged he had still thought of nothing.  
“Well, you two can leave now. The other teachers are being alerted.”

The pair smiled at each other. Jackpot. They could get out of class for the day and do whatever they wanted. The only issue now was whether or not they were going to go to Tsukki’s house, or make the arduous 90 minute walk to Yamaguchi’s seeing as they didn’t have a car to take them home as Yamaguchi usually would.  
“Well then, my place or yours?”  
“You make it sound like a date, Tsukki”  
“It’s not a date!”  
“Stop being so defensive. Sheesh.”  
“I’m not being defensive! Besides, I don’t even know why I’m asking. If we go to my place I’ll have to explain to Akiteru why I’m home, then I’ll have to explain to my parents, at least yours will understand if we go to yours.”  
“Okay, but It’s a long walk.”  
“Does it matter? School started a half hour ago. We’d get there before lunch and then have the entire day to burn.”  
“Alright! That sounds great! Oh, wait, crap, my bag and stuff are still in class. I have to go get it, oh man I’m gonna look so stupid.”  
“Do you want me to get it for you?”  
“No, I’ll do it, I just have to go in for two seconds and pack my stuff up and the teacher won’t say anything.”  
“Alright.”

When he had gotten back to class, Yamaguchi made a conscious effort to scramble everything in to his bag without any sense of organization as quickly as was humanly possible to try and avoid leaving any sort of lasting impression on the class and try to make his actions earlier an afterthought. Even still, despite his best efforts, the girl who typically sits to his right couldn’t resist asking the juicy question that was on the minds of the entire class. “Yamaguchi, what’s wrong?”  
Similarly, the boy who sits behind him asked the same question, and was followed up by a sudden chatter around the entire class. The teacher, understanding the situation, was quick to silence him. Considering how often Yamaguchi felt alone without Tsukki at his side, he was surprised so many people were interested. It was probably just the assorted gossipers of the school getting ready to make its rounds. Still, he felt like for once in his life, he should own up for his actions, he should at least not make an even bigger fool of himself and ignore their questions and run out of the class, nervous and silent, leaving their questions hanging.  
“I’m just going through some stuff right now, I’m fine, honest. I just need to take a day out and clear my head.” He feigned a warm smile as he walked out of the class, greeted by Tsukki’s legitimate smile of approval. It was an odd situation for Yamaguchi to be talking to the entire class at once. Yamaguchi saw it as him being a burden, but Tsukki saw it as him making progress towards being more open and less reliant on Tsukki.

“Nice one.”  
“What? Did I say something wrong? Did I make myself look stupid? Damn it, I can’t do anything right.”  
“You just had no issue telling the whole class about your problems. Look at how I handled doing that with the team finding out about mine. I should take example.”  
Yamaguchi stood wide eyed, almost in awe that Tsukki was telling him he could be a better person by taking example from him. It was a first, and it was something that meant an immense amount to him. He instinctively leaped towards Tsukki, wrapping his arms around him and burying his head in to his chest. “Thanks, Tsukki!”  
“Alright, alright, get off of me, you made your point. Now let’s head off. Want to stop to eat on the way back? I missed breakfast while trying to rush to be on time.”  
“Oh, but I already ate.”  
“I’m pretty sure the fast food place is still doing breakfast. You don’t want to miss out, do you?”  
“No way, Tsukki!”


	8. Realisations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's a light at the end of each and every tunnel.

Grey. Grey spread out across the sky for miles and miles with no end in sight. Yamaguchi couldn’t remember the last time he had seen the sun. It felt like it had been raining for weeks without pausing for a brief respite for more than a few hours at a time, when realistically, it had been four or five days at best. It was as if the weather had a grudge on them for reasons unknown. Fortunately, for once the two boys were reasonably prepared for the constant, unbroken downpour of the chilled rain. Yamaguchi testing his luck had opened his umbrella in the school foyer, and Tsukki had donned a waterproof raincoat with a hood that had been ripped off many months ago. It admittedly offered little protection to his lower body, or his head, but it was a step up from being caught in an unexpected shower like they had been the last week. On the downside, the wind proved an unpleasant experience for all, especially given the ninety minute trek on foot to Yamaguchi’s residence, desperately trying to keep an umbrella from folding inside out along the way. Their plan to stop and eat on the way back was the bright spark at the end of a long, cold and wet tunnel. Keeping dry was a hopeless endeavour, but at least there’d be burgers, fries and Yamaguchi’s central heating to compensate.

The sopping wet heaps that were Tsukki and Yamaguchi had finally arrived at the fast food joint about twenty minutes before breakfast had closed for the day. It was ghostly with nobody sticking around for brunch, and only one member of staff sitting at the register. They had the pick of the store’s seating and the free will to do just about anything without fearing the social implications. That said, as much as they would have loved to raise the roof and make it a party, it was only a fast food joint, the empty space around them served only to allow their voices to echo in the dull white sheen of the restaurant interior. They had probably made one employee’s quiet, relaxing day as everyone avoided walking to the fast food restaurant in to a minor inconvenience.

“What can I get you?” The cashier’s monotone voice could rival the weather in its dullness.  
“Just a bacon egg sandwich. Yamaguchi?”  
“Two large fries, please.”  
“Just fries?”  
“Yeah.”  
“Okay…”  
With a dirty, judging look, the employee went to the back and got to work on cooking a fresh batch of food, as there was absolutely none pre-prepared. Unsurprising given the exceptionally low customer turnout today. Yamaguchi and Tsukki’s upbeat mood was a stark contrast to the somewhat melancholic atmosphere lingering around the entire town that morning.  
“You know, I should get sad more often. Every time I do I get junk food out of it,” Yamaguchi giggled to himself.  
“I’d rather see you be happy without having to be sad in the first place.” Yamaguchi’s light-hearted quip was met with a very stern and serious response from Tsukki. Yamaguchi awkwardly looked away as if he had embarrassed himself making such a statement.   
“It was only a joke, Tsukki...” 

“Here’s your order.” A faux smile spread across the cashiers face as he handed them their food, and dealt with their change. An equally fake smile from Tsukki was given in response as he thanked him for his arduous fry cooking to their first customer in hours, and went away to the pick of the crop when it came to tables. They nestled themselves by the storefront window, hoping to keep an eye on the weather offering a brief break from the torrential downpour that had plagued the town for the last week. From there to Yamaguchi’s house was only a good fifteen minutes away. Most of the trip had already been made on foot, feeling like no time at all as they had pushed to get through the rain as quickly as possible. The air conditioning vent was unfortunately placed on the ceiling above their seats, sending an uncomfortable chill down their somewhat damp clothing. There’s only so much one coat and one umbrella can do.

“You know, the bus stop here Tsukki. Do you think they have Wi-Fi? I can check the times.”  
“Check yourself.”  
“Hey! Do you guys have Wi-Fi here?” Yamaguchi made the bold move of shouting to the cashier, knowing that the restaurant was empty.   
“Yeah.” His meek response reeked of not wanting to be here.  
“Alright, thanks!”  
“I meant on your available connections list, for fucks sake, Yamaguchi.”  
“Oh, right, sorry Tsukki!”  
While booting up his phone, Yamaguchi couldn’t ignore the abnormally high number of text alerts he had. Six new messages, it wasn’t something he was used to. He could put off reading one or two new messages, they were probably just messages from his provider offering special deals or his mother telling him to remember to take something out of the freezer for dinner, but six was unusual. His curiosity was piqued and got the better of him. He had to check.

“Well? What do they say? Nobody’s dead are they?”  
“No, Tsukki. Nobody’s dead. I think. They’re all from people in class though. Maybe the teacher’s dead.”  
“I hope so.”  
“Hey! He’s not so bad, he let us leave. And thanks to me, forgot to give you a tardy.”  
“It’s not my fault I was late. I was waiting for the weather to stop.”  
“You have a raincoat, why didn’t you just go?”  
“I didn’t want to get wet, read the damn texts Yamaguchi before the bus comes and we miss it because you were too busy arguing with me to read your texts then look up the bust times, come on!”  
“Sheesh, okay.” After a moment of flicking through the texts, Yamaguchi had brought his right hand to cover his mouth. After a few moments more, he dropped his phone, and brought his head down on to his crossed arms on the table, struggling to fight back tears. Rather than take the moment to console Yamaguchi from whatever it was, morbid curiosity struck and he grabbed Yamaguchi’s phone, immediately checking what he assumed to be the awful teasing he had gotten as a result of his breakdown in class earlier.

* * *

Tachibana, 8:46am: If you need somebody to talk to, let me know.  
Ryouta, 8:46am: dont feel alone. youre never the only one. idk if I can help but i can try.  
Kai, 8:45am: are u okay?   
Hitoka, 8:44am: Yamaguchi why didn’t you tell us something was up!! I don’t want to see my friends sad. hmu if you need me to talk. Hope you’re back in class tomorrow!  
Mom, 8:13am: oh and buy milk on way home. have a good day sweetie xx  
Mom, 8:11am: you forgot you coat in the back seat this morning. sorry!

* * *

“See, I told you people care about you, Yamaguchi.”  
“I just thought you were saying it to be nice.” Yamaguchi’s speech was broken while he tried to talk while half-heartedly being unable to stop himself from crying.   
“Why would I lie to make you feel better? It’d just make it worse in the long run.”  
“I’ve never had a reason to believe anything else.”  
“Well now you do. Look, your parents care, I care, your classmates care, your team cares, people-“ Tsukki stopped as he looked behind him after noticing an odd noise. The cashier was clapping for them.  
“I’m glad you’re having a moment”  
“Stick to your fucking job, this is a private conversation, jackass.”  
“I’m bored out of my mind here, cut me a break.”  
“Yamaguchi, ignore him. I’ll let you get yourself a little less teary-eyed while I check the bus times.”

Tsukki spent a moment trying to come to grips with Yamaguchi’s somewhat modern phone. With each button he pushed that did the opposite of what he want on this fancy looking piece of technology, he was reminded of just how spoiled Yamaguchi was by his parents. Having finally cracked how to get online and look anything up, he pulled up the bus times. He looked up from his phone to see Yamaguchi, smiling angelically with sheer delight, and finally having stopped crying with happiness.  
“Alright, the bus leaves-“ He saw from the window opposite him the bus pulling up. “-now…” It sped off, hardly waiting a moment as one person got off, and with nobody else waiting at the stop in the rain, and it went back to its route. “And the next one is in an hour. Looks like we’re walking.”

“Ready to go?” By the time Yamaguchi had finished asking, Tsukki was already standing up and taking the used tray towards the trash chute and had his coat on, albeit unzipped in a rush. Yamaguchi shook off his umbrella in the doorway as if it would have any effect in helping to keep him dry while Tsukki took off his coat, then put his bag on first, zipping his coat back up with his bag sheltered from the rain.   
“Have a fun day!” Tsukki sarcastically shouted at the cashier as the pair left out the door and began their brisk stroll, continuing the remainder of their trip home. Much like after their trip to the mochi store last Friday, they were just happy to be on the final stretch, getting out of the weather.   
“Hey, Tsukki, do you think I should take them up on their offer?”  
“What do you mean?”  
“Well, y’know, people offering to talk to me.”  
“I don’t see how it could hurt.”  
“Yeah, but uh, there’s a lot of people, I can’t talk to them all at once can I? And if I talk to one and then tell the rest nothing’s wrong they might think something’s really wrong, but I’m also kind of over it now, but also-”  
“You’re not over it now, Yamaguchi. You know that issues don’t go away over a day’s kind words. Talk to other people. Get a different perspective. It’ll be good for you. They want to help, and actually having people who want to help is a step forward anyway.”  
“Yeah! You’re right. Tsukki. For somebody who’s pretty quiet and doesn’t get involved in people’s business, you’re pretty darn smart. You’re better at all this than me. You probably know a bunch of stuff that nobody even realises! I wish I was as cool as you, Tsukki.”  
“You’re pretty cool. There’s no one set thing that makes people cool, it’s like- Why are you staring at me like that?”  
“Say that again.”  
“What?”  
“Say I’m cool again!”  
“Uh, you’re cool?”  
“I don’t remember the last time somebody called me cool.”  
“Maybe if you spent more time around people who weren’t me, you would.”  
“But I like hanging out with you.”  
“No, I’m not saying don’t hang out with me, I’m just saying that you have other friends, it’s school for god’s sake, classmates expect you to talk to them. They’re not going to tell you to get out after telling you they want to help with your happiness.”  
“Oh, yeah I guess that does make sense. But still, hanging out with you is the best! And look down the road.”  
“What? Oh.”  
“I’ll race you there, Tsukki.”  
“Are you kidding me? How am I supposed to get past that giant fucking umbrella in the way?”  
“Oh dear how sad never mind bye!”  
“Hey, that head start’s not fair!”  
The pair both began sprinting through the rain. What the pair saw in front of them was a true sight of beauty, something they had both so desperately craved for so long. They could barely contain their excitement as at the end of the road stood an almost miraculous entity. The warm, dry and comforting sight of Yamaguchi’s house at the streets end. Even if the pair didn’t have any plans, considering that the pair had just spent most of the last two hours walking in the rain, or sitting in damp clothes, things could only improve from this point onwards. The day was young and the fun had only just begun.


	9. Obliviousness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Even the greatest sometimes struggle to see what's in clear sight.

“I win. Better luck next time, Yamaguchi!”  
“No fair, Tsukki! You’re taller, and you ran on the road, you could have got hit by a car!”  
“It’s not my fault you blocked me with your god damn umbrella. Now instead of arguing about the ethics of a footrace, can you get your keys out of your bag so we can get inside and not stand in the rain anymore?”  
“Right, right, keys. Let me just, uh, look around here…”  
“Don’t tell me you forgot them.”  
“I didn’t forget them! I left home with them. I always do. I put them in my coat… pocket…”  
“Yamaguchi I swear, I god damn swear, if you’ve made me come all this way, and you don’t have your keys-“  
“Found ‘em! I threw them in my bag because I needed to use my locker this morning because I didn’t get all my books and stuff ready yesterday after school, because, y’know.”  
“You’re going to give me a heart attack one day.”  
“With all the sweets you eat, I’m pretty sure you’ll give yourself one first.”  
“Says mister ‘two large french fries for brunch’. Why are we still standing here, open the door.”  
“Right.”

As soon as the door opened, the sweltering heat of room temperature felt like a desert-like experience compared to the atrocious weather they had been exposed to for so long prior. Yamaguchi’s house had a very modern touch to it. A hybrid of eclectic and contemporary décor rested on the wooden floors, each with a bright sheen as if it had been installed the day before, in reality, it had been over-zealously cleaned for the purpose of Yamaguchi’s parents satisfying any business related guests they may have over in their busy lives. Expensive looking gadgets donned the tables and varnished tops in the sitting room and kitchen, each meticulously worked until they were spotless. It seemed more like a show home than a house for three. The hallway lead Tsukki and Yamaguchi to the stairs, the wooden floors being replaced with carpet as they moved to the first floor with more traditional furnishings. In the landing, the walls were coated with a crisp ocean blue paint, Tsukki noting that it had yet again changed since the last time he had visited. Five doors made up the somewhat cramped upstairs area. Two bedrooms, a study, a bathroom and one that lead only to a washer dryer and shelves for towels and the like. Given how neat and orderly everything was, Tsukki was amazed that guests were ever allowed to visit for recreational reasons, it might hamper their ‘look’. 

Yamaguchi’s room had a stark contrast to the rest of the house. It was very much a typical teenage boy’s bedroom. His double bed, far bigger than he could ever need sat as the centrepiece of the room. Opposite it was a television mounted on the wall with an assortment of games consoles, games and so on piled up on the floor underneath it, evidently using the end of the bed as a seat for playing games. On each side there was a bedside table with a lamp on one and assorted things such as keys, watches and such on the other. His desk was nestled in the corner, stacked with folders, planners, textbooks and a paper bin filled with crumpled up balls of whatever piece of work had been frustrating him at the time. The walls were adorned with assorted posters, some of musicians, some of anime, some that looked like they had been there for nearly a decade, and nobody had bothered to take them down. On the opposite side of the room was his wardrobe and drawers, practically overloaded with clothes, most of which Tsukki had never seen Yamaguchi wearing before. It was a room that could be copy and pasted anywhere in any students house and seem normal.

“So, Yamaguchi, this is your place, what fun things do you have in mind to waste the day on?”  
“I for one am getting out of these wet clothes and throwing them in the drier.” Yamaguchi started pulling his shirt off and searching through the wardrobe for something more comfortable.  
“Right in front of me!?”  
“What? It’s no worse than the team locker room.”  
“Yeah but this is at home.”  
“And I get changed at home and the entire team has seen me, and the entire team has seen you in your underwear. Who cares? It’s not like I’m getting naked.” Yamaguchi repeated the process with his school pants, grabbing a black pair of shorts from the top of the wardrobe. “Besides, what are you planning on doing, sitting in wet clothes all day?”  
“Well…”  
“I’m putting my stuff in the drier. You’re probably going to get a ride home from my mom later, you’re not gonna get wet again, you may as well do it too.”  
“And change in to what, exactly?”  
“I dunno. Take a shirt or something.”  
“Like any of your clothes will fit. Besides, I think under my jacket my shirt stayed dry.” Tsukki didn’t want to admit that his pants were drenched, but he had to, and tossed them aside to be put in the drier. Sitting in a button up white school t-shirt and his boxers was not how Tsukki had envisioned his afternoon at Yamaguchi’s.  
“I think the dryer stuff will be done in ninety minutes? I think that’s how it works.”  
“That’s fine. Got anything to eat around here?”  
“No, Tsukki. We feed off the energy of the sun’s rays.” Tsukki pouted at the sarcastic response to an admittedly stupid question. Yamaguchi tilted his head with a look of disappointment shooting down Tsukki. “Come on, let’s go to the kitchen.”

Having dived in to the kitchen looking for snacks for scrounge up, Tsukki was somewhat shocked at how many options they had for snacks. It was as if their house was a supermarket that had one of everything to enjoy at a moment’s notice. The decision to choose between candy, biscuits, chips, sandwiches, and fruit was difficult. They could just order a pizza. They could cook a frozen pizza. They could make a pizza. They could do whatever they want, or at least Yamaguchi assured Tsukki so, and his parents wouldn’t care at all. They had free reign to do whatever they could have imagined in the kitchen, which is what lead to Yamaguchi coming up with the brilliant idea that immediately won Tsukki over.  
“Hey, Tsukki, let’s make strawberry shortcake.”  
“Fuck. Yes.”

At this point there was absolutely no surprises that they had everything they need to make strawberry shortcake already present in the house. Strawberries, sugar, flour, cream, baking powder and an assortment of bowls, whisks and mixers were laid out delicately over the counter top. Within a few minutes, each bowl had a perfectly measured out portion of everything that was required, ready to be all mixed together to make a delicious treat for the pair to snack on that afternoon.  
“Okay, so you put the sugar in to the flour… Tsukki hold this bowl of cream for a second it’s in the way.”  
“What? Don’t hand me this, just put it somewhere else.”  
“Just take the damn bowl Tsukki.”  
“Yamaguchi, I-“  
“Would it kill you to hold it?”  
Yamaguchi practically forced the bowl in to Tsukki’s chest, he let it go a little too early while Tsukki still didn’t have a proper grip on it. The inevitable disaster struck in the kitchen, as the two amateur bakers had managed to make an enormous mistake. The echo of the plastic bowl hitting the ground filled the room, only to be followed up by angry yelping from Tsukki. He had cream down his boxers and thighs. It was as if the sight had been taken straight from a comedy sketch. Yamaguchi immediately brushed himself up in to a panic.  
“Hold still Tsukki, I’ll wipe it off!” Yamaguchi had instinctively grabbed a tea towel and wrapped it around his hand so he could wipe it up.  
“Holy fuck this is so cold.” Tsukki’s words were stuttering in time with his body shivering as the smooth white liquid dripped down him. “Yamaguchi, let me do it! Stop trying to rub my fuck crotch with that, what is this a porno or something?”  
“Sorry Tsukki! I didn’t mean it, I was just trying to help, sorry, sorry, you do it, go take ‘em off I’ll go get some spare from upstairs for you.”  
“Now you’re trying to get my underwear off? Yamaguchi, you’re so forward.” Tsukki’s playful joke fell on deaf ears as Yamaguchi had worked himself in to shock as he did everything he desperately good to try and be helpful and make amends for the situation, which he had admittedly had to take the blame for. Within less than sixty seconds Yamaguchi had reappeared.  
“I got the biggest pair I could find, uh, no offence, you’re just tall, y’know.”  
“Where do I change?”  
“Anywhere! Just not in front of me, come out, shoo, get out.”  
“Alright, which door’s the bathroom?”  
“The little door under the stairs is one of the bathrooms just go there, come on, hurry up.”  
“You’re so excited, hurrying me to get my pants off.”  
“Tsukki! Shut up, get out.”  
“Okay, okay.”

While Tsukki was gone, Yamaguchi was thinking to himself and trying to quell his embarrassing thoughts, realising he had accidentally touched Tsukki’s crotch through his underwear. They had made it this far in life without ever having an inadvertent sexual moment, and it was all ruined in one afternoon by a mishandled bowl of whipping cream. Tsukki barely opened the bathroom door, peering his head out and shouted down the house.  
“Yamaguchi!”  
“Yeah, Tsukki?”  
“They’re a little small”  
“There’s nothing else.”  
“Is the stuff done in the dryer?”  
“Not for another forty minutes or so.”  
“Alright, see you in forty minutes, Yamaguchi.”  
“Tsukki! Get out of there, it can’t be that bad. I’m coming in and dragging you out if you don’t. I’m not letting his day get wasted because you’re scared. There’s still a half-baked shortcake here. Come on.”  
“Fine. Don’t laugh.”

Tsukki emerged from the bathroom, trying to hide his shame. His face was flushed red with no sign of stopping and his hands idly distracted each other behind his back.  
“They just look like boxer-briefs.”  
“Yeah, but, they’re kind of tight.”  
“Like boxer-briefs.”  
“Yeah… but-“  
“Get over it Tsukki, I’ve seen worse. It’s not like you’re strutting around in briefs.”  
“I might as well be.”  
“Oh whatever, let’s get back to making this shortcake. I’m starting to feel hungry.”  
Yamaguchi grabbed Tsukki’s wrist and pulled him to the kitchen as if he was a child that had been scolded by their mother. The entire time, in Yamaguchi’s head he was complimenting himself. “Good job, Yamaguchi, you didn’t say anything about long, long legs and built, built thighs. Wait, he’s Tsukki… No, it’s just from a volleyball perspective. He’s in shape! But I know he wouldn’t like me saying it after all that.” Of course, he was right. Tsukki would have attempted to end Yamaguchi’s life if he had said something about his legs while being forced to parade around Yamaguchi’s house in Yamaguchi’s underwear while Yamaguchi stands right next to him so calmly acting as if there’s nothing wrong. At least when they were done, the shortcake was delicious.

* * *

“So, what do you want to do now?”   
“Well, I finally got around to playing that new fighting game that came out a month ago. My parents bought it for me, but I never really touched it until recently. It’s pretty fun but I’m not very good at it.” Yamaguchi held up the box, and Tsukki was in awe.  
“I love this game.”  
Tsukki immediately dived on to Yamaguchi’s bed, opposite the television and grabbed the player two controller, readjusting in to a position more suited to kicking Yamaguchi’s ass at video games, sitting on the edge of the bed. They booted up the console, and the title screen showed. Yamaguchi made them sit through it because he loved the title theme, and eventually they picked their characters and went at it in a best of three rounds. Unfortunately, they never made it to the third round, as Tsukki destroyed Yamaguchi within the first two, even having the second round be a flawless victory. Yamaguchi challenged him to a rematch with a different character, and proceeded to get his ass whooped a second time. Then a third.

“How do you even… you were doing tricks and moves I’ve never seen before.”  
“Do you need me to teach you how to git gud you casual scrub?”  
“What the fuck did you just say?”  
“Look, I’ll show you.” Tsukki had him start up a single player match, and started calling out button combinations to show him assorted tricks. Most of them failed because he didn’t press the button fast other, others failed because he was continuously getting hit by the AI opponent. Eventually, even with Tsukki trying to help him, he lost.  
“Guess you’re not so good a teacher after all.”  
“Look, come here, it’s easier this way.” Tsukki dragged Yamaguchi on to his lap and had him start up a rematch against the computer. Yamaguchi was too focused on the fact that Tsukki had just pulled him on to his barely clothed lower body completely nonchalantly, and didn’t seem to care at all. “Yamaguchi, press play.”  
“Oh, oh, right, yeah.” Things were a lot easier for Yamaguchi with Tsukki playing for him, with Yamaguchi watching the controller movements. However, he didn’t learn a single thing. He was distracted. Mainly because he was trying his absolute hardest not to move because he was completely sure that he was grinding against Tsukki’s dick, and was afraid things would get immensely awkward. When Tsukki was done winning the fight, Yamaguchi floundered. Tsukki wasn’t a terrible teacher. Yamaguchi was a terrible student, distracted by the teacher and not attentive in class. Today had just been one embarrassing, awkward and inadvertently sexual moment after the other for Yamaguchi.

The front door clicking open could be heard coming from downstairs. Yamaguchi’s mother was home. She had known prior thanks to Yamaguchi’s text that they would be home earlier. The first thing she did was charge upstairs to make sure that her baby was okay after having his panic attack earlier. She had made a huge mistake. Yamaguchi was still on Tsukki’s lap as she came in, and Tsukki was half naked, and also wearing Yamaguchi’s slightly too small underwear.   
“Oh, hey you two, uh, I’m just getting the laundry basket. Have fun.” She tried to divert her original plan of comforting Yamaguchi to not want to interrupt, what she had interpreted to be, a romantic, caring moment between her son and her long-time friend, now assumedly boyfriend. She looked in to the laundry basket and saw Tsukki’s boxers, unfortunately covered in white dollops of whip cream, which could be, in this case, mistaken for something a little more lewd. She could not stop herself from dropping the basket and letting out a shrill scream. Yamaguchi’s mother had assumed the pair had spent the day cutting class to have sex.

“Mom, what’s wrong?”  
“What… were you two doing… today?”  
“Uh, we made shortcake, then played video games. Not much. Tsukki helped me calm down from earlier.”  
“Calmed… down?”  
“Yes ma’am, I was helping Yamaguchi because he told the teacher that I was the only person who could help calm down after his anxiety attack in class.”  
“Only… you… Okay then. I’ll just go and do the laundry then.”  
“Can you get Tsukki’s pants out of the dryer while you’re there?”  
“Oh, of course Tsukki’s pants are in the dryer.”  
“Yeah, because it was raining earlier.”  
“Pardon?”  
“Well, still is raining. But we got soaked coming home, and Tsukki had no spare clothes except his shirt on which stayed dry and his boxers, but then his boxers got cream on them when we were making the shortbread so he had to borrow some of mine.”  
“Oh, oh right, yes, yes, that makes sense. That makes a lot more sense. Alright you two, have fun. I’ll get your clothes, Tsukishima, no problem!” She walked out of the room, smiling to herself at how stupid she could have been to think her son was getting up to such inappropriate behaviour in her absence.

“So, uh, Tsukki. Am I done sitting on your lap now?”  
“If you want.”  
Yamaguchi’s mother returned with Tsukki’s clothes, and he got himself dressed, having to make a note on his phone to return Yamaguchi’s underwear clean (not something he ever thought he would have to remind himself) before getting ready to leave.  
“Aren’t you going to stay for dinner, Tsukki?”  
“Nah, my parents are expecting me for my dinner at some point too. I’ll get going.”  
“Mom, give Tsukki a ride home, don’t let him walk it, it’s nearly two hours!”  
“Alright, alright, calm down Tadashi. Put the oven on for when I get back and I’ll drop him off.”  
Tsukki and Yamaguchi’s mother left the house and pulled out on the road, disappearing from sight within a matter of seconds. Looking on from the living room window, he walked off and collapsed on to the sofa. He groaned in disappointment, with nobody else in the house to hear it. He went over his memories of the day, looking back at everything he and Tsukki had done before groaning again and muttering quietly to himself.

“Why won’t he just say he loves me?”


	10. Reconciliation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This was originally going to be one chapter, but a 5,000 word chapter goes against the flow of the story, so enjoy a healthy does of DaiSuga in your life.

Tsukki, having arose from the pit that was his warm bed this morning, had been going through the usual motions. Morning routines were felled one after another. He heard the doorbell ringing as he took his morning shower, and yelled at his mother to get the door for him. He heard a voice call back to him.  
“It’s your friend, Yamaguchi, I’m late for work, don’t leave your guest waiting, Kei!”  
The relaxing heat of the shower had to be cut short so he could entertain the unusual morning visit from Yamaguchi. In fact, Tsukki couldn’t remember any time when Yamaguchi had come to visit him in the morning. He also wondered how the hell he even got there in the first place, or why he was there at all. He must have had his mother drop him off, but Tsukki couldn’t wrap his head around what could have been so important to cause what was effectively a momentous occasion. He had to rush out of the shower, adorned in his towel to shout down the stairs for Yamaguchi to come in and wait in the sitting room while he towelled of and got dressed. Thank god that his mother didn’t tell Yamaguchi to let himself in and end up walking upstairs and in on Tsukki. He didn’t need any more embarrassing scenarios in his already turbulent and drama filled week.

“What brings you here so early? No, what brings you here at all?”  
“I have a surprise for you!” Yamaguchi unzipped his bag as Tsukki stood looking on in wonder. What could it have been? It wasn’t his birthday, or some major holiday. For starters, it was crazy enough that Yamaguchi had been here in the first place, and now he was giving him a surprise gift. Perhaps he was doing something extra to try and make up for what Yamaguchi still believed was drama that he had caused. He waited in anticipation as Yamaguchi dug around in his backpack. Tsukki could hardly contain his excitement up until the moment Yamaguchi revealed the ‘surprise’ to him.  
“Oh.”  
“Here’s your underwear from yesterday. You left before my mom had done laundry.”  
“You came all this way this morning because of that?”  
Yamaguchi ran over the thoughts in his head over and over of how he could respond. He wanted to say that he wanted to walk to school with him, that he wanted to spend more time with him, or brighten up his morning from the very start by spending time with Tsukki. He couldn’t bring himself to say that he wanted to be around Tsukki as much as he could, and that every second he did spend was a second well spent in his life. Eventually, after running every scenario through his head, he finally came to the conclusion of the best way to deal with the situation.  
“Yes.”

Just as the pair were about to roll out the door, ready for what would hopefully be the first peaceful day of the week, Yamaguchi stopped Tsukki, noticing that something was a little off about Tsukki’s appearance that morning. It took him a moment to process what it was that seemed so different, but eventually, it clicked.  
“Tsukki, why don’t you have your volleyball bag?”  
“I don’t see much point when the team are pissed at me.” Yamaguchi groaned and rolled his eyes at him.  
“How are you meant to apologize if you don’t go to practice? Come on, get your stuff. I’ll help. We’re already running nearly late so you better be fast.”  
“It’ll be easier if we just leave now…” Before Tsukki had finished speaking, Yamaguchi had already ran upstairs with the intent of packing Tsukki’s volleyball essentials for him to save time so he could get back to playing with the team. It pained Yamaguchi knowing that volleyball wouldn’t be the same without Tsukki, even if he knew that he would be able to take Tsukki’s spot in the starting team if he dropped it. He knew that as much as Tsukki would deny it, volleyball was important to him, as much as his stubbornness would tell the world otherwise. He had to do all in his power to make sure that he was playing again and that he was happy again, and on good terms with the team.

Everything necessary was packed and ready to go as if it was a normal day, or like any day before this week, as things had only plummeted downhill so rapidly as of this Monday. Volleyball uniform, check, deodorant, check, Yamaguchi quickly ran off a list before they left to make sure Tsukki had absolutely everything and wouldn’t be able to bail even if he tried. All was good and all were ready to go.  
“I’d ask myself if I had everything, but obviously you’re doing that for me. Do I have everything, Yamaguchi?”  
“Raincoat.”  
“Still? For fucks sake. Can’t we have one nice day?”  
“Just get it or we’ll be even later than we already are.”  
“You could have just given me my cleaned clothes at school anyway. Why do you want to walk in the rain anyway?”  
Yamaguchi was yet again forced on to a pedestal by Tsukki’s questioning. Yet again, he desperately wanted to tell Tsukki that he loved spending time with him and for once he had an excuse to actually visit Tsukki and walk to class with him, but for the second time in the morning, he couldn’t bring himself to say it.  
“Oh, I just didn’t think this through,” he chuckled unconvincingly. “Now let’s get going. You’ll be in big trouble if you’re late two days in a row.”

Usual conversations were struck up upon on the route to school: the dinosaur show that had been on last night, the music that Tsukki had added to his phone, the entire thing seemed to become rather Tsukki-centric, but Yamaguchi didn’t mind at all. After a while, Yamaguchi had brought up everything they had gotten up to yesterday, reminiscing in the activities of the day before as if they were looking back on their childhood with a rose tinted lens, or perhaps nostalgia goggles given the hectic and awkward nature of most of the stay. Eventually, they got to the part where Yamaguchi’s mother had walked in on the pair effectively straddling each other while Tsukki was in his underwear. It wasn’t the most pleasant of memories, albeit for awkwardness related reasons, Yamaguchi had admittedly not minded the situation at all. It raised the question of just how people actually saw the pair. It was clear that Yamaguchi’s mother had absolutely no qualms when it came to seeing them as a couple rather than just very close, long term best friends. Perhaps people at school would see them the same way, especially thanks to that one damned photo Akiteru had insisted on sending around as a joke. It was probably for the best if they didn’t mention any of it whatsoever to the team.

The menial school day ran on as if it were any other drab morning and afternoon of classes that felt like they wouldn’t be at all relevant in their future life. It felt like it had passed in a breeze and yet another day had been put behind them, ready to focus on doing it all again the next day, but instead, they first of all had to go through practice, and had to go through Tsukki trying to win over a team that certainly would not be particularly happy to see him back after the colourful vocabulary he had used to talk about them. At least Sugawara might be relieved. He seemed to be just about the only person who had actually cared about helping Tsukki out at the time he needed somebody to talk to the most. It was more than Yamaguchi could boast (although, their ‘make-up’ house visit the very next day perhaps had more success than anything Sugawara had said).

When they arrived outside the doors to the gymnasium once school had ended, they were met by Tanaka and Noya who had shown up at the same time. Like an aggressive pair of pitbull’s, they stood their ground at the entrance, not letting Tsukki and Yamaguchi through until they had had a word with Tsukki, of course, it was never their intention of letting Tsukki back in at all.  
“Well look who came crawling back.” Tanaka had already prepared himself by pulling his sleeves up, ready to pounce at moment’s notice if things began to go badly.  
“Yeah, yeah, get out of the way so we can talk to Daichi.”  
“He’s not here yet. We’re here through. I thought you didn’t need this team. Why are you here? We don’t take too kindly to people who aren’t a part of the team trying to waste our time with our key games coming up.”  
“Yes, well, if you’d let us in, I’d be able to sort things out. For some reason you seem to think that you’re more important than me, now move.”  
“What, you think you’re better than us? Get outta here while you still have the chance to use those legs of yours. You’re gonna-“  
“Oi!” The familiar voice immediately silenced the entire group huddled around the gymnasium doors. Daichi and Sugawara had strolled up to the entrance. Daichi still pressed them with questions despite knowing exactly what was going on. “What are you doing?”  
“We’re just welcoming Tsukki back.”  
“Bullshit! You were threatening to fight just because you were pissed off that I wanted to apologize to Daichi’s face and not his little yapping terriers trying to act like they run the place.”  
“Terriers? Can’t you shut your mouth?”  
“Quiet!” Daichi’s imposing cadence instilled fear in to all those around him. He was not in the mood for the club to fall in to disarray over arguments, and was certainly not in the mood for a fight to break out between teammates when the club was already on relatively poor terms with the schools higher-ups. Now that Daichi had struck everyone quiet, Sugawara stepped in to try and defuse the situation.  
“Now, Tanaka, Noya, you two should know all about doing things you shouldn’t in the heat of the moment. I would have thought that the two of you would be the first to welcome Tsukki back with open arms.” The pair didn’t respond and simply stood looking on and pouting. They couldn’t argue with Sugawara, and the pair had to concede that he was right. They did quite often act very brashly.  
“Fine,” the pair both grumbled.  
“Good. Everyone go inside. Tsukki can apologize to everybody to their faces.”  
“Suga, are you sure? He still seems a little angered.” Daichi whispered as the rest of the group had gone inside, understandably having concerns about how Tsukki was acting when any sort of stress popped up in front of him.  
“Just get inside and we’ll sort it out there.”

Sugawara had gathered up the team in a big circle once everyone had arrived, with Tsukki standing in-between him and Daichi. There was a mixed reaction of shock and disapproval of Tsukki showing up for practice somewhat calmly, but the general reaction was confusion as to why the hell Sugawara has holding some sort of team meeting.  
“Everyone, Tsukki has something he wants to say.”  
“Oh, if he’s sorry who cares, can we just practice?”  
“No, Hinata, wait until Tsukki has apologized to everyone and not just assuming that he’s genuinely sorry for being so reckless in the heat of the moment. Tsukki…”  
“I’m sorry, I said things I shouldn’t, I was stressed because of stuff at home, let’s just forget it ever happened.”  
“He should get on his knees and beg for forgiveness.”  
“Noya! Tsukki’s not getting on his knees for anyone.”  
“For Yamaguchi, maybe.”  
“Why are you trying to provoke him? This is a team. A team that’s only as strong as its weakest link. Maybe the problem isn’t Tsukki, and the chain that holds this team together is going to snap because of you. Maybe we need to cut it off so we can be ready for our big game.”  
“Sheesh, it was a joke. Yeah, whatever, he’s sorry. Let’s practice.”  
“Okay! Is everyone happy?” Sugawara took general inaudible muttering to mean yes. “Alright, let’s get to practice. Tanaka, Asahi Kageyama, get on that side of the court with me and start spiking so we can practice receives.”  
“Osu!”

Practice was uneventful. Not much happened other than Tsukki eventually having the team warm up to him, except for Daichi. The entire time, Daichi had serious doubts that Tsukki had managed to solve all of his problems in two days. He was of the belief that there was a perfectly reasonable chance that Tsukki would have another outburst if sufficiently provoked, and it would yet again destroy team harmony and put a spanner in the works of their quest to get to nationals. While he didn’t say it, Sugawara was able to tell. He had the ability to read Daichi just from his facial expressions. He could tell that something was up, and he could tell that Yamaguchi was feeling somewhat the same. Sugawara put matters in to his own hands, pulling Yamaguchi aside for a one to one talk about how they can try to fix the situation. At the rate it was going, Daichi would try to interject in Coach Ukai’s team selection, and likely make a move to have Tsukki be put on the side-lines for their next match for the benefit of the team. 

“Yamaguchi, are you noticing Daichi?”  
“Uh, am I supposed to be?” Sugawara sighed. It was a question he knew deep down that Yamaguchi wouldn’t know the correct answer to.  
“Look, Daichi is not happy with Tsukki, even after he apologized.”  
“Why? I didn’t think he would hold grudges.”  
“He doesn’t. The issue is, he still thinks that Tsukki isn’t in a fit mental state to be playing for the team in such crucial games that we have coming up, you know?”  
“Not really.”  
“Look, we need to do something about it, and I have an idea.”  
“An idea?” Yamaguchi had a strange feeling building up inside of him that it was going to be a terrible idea that in the long run would do more harm than good and lead to some ridiculous sitcom style scenario that leads to imaginary land and the scenario where it all makes Daichi see the light, and Tsukki is welcomed back with open arms by the team captain over their comedic misunderstanding.  
“An idea. You know Daichi and I are a thing, right? You two are pretty close, we should go out together tomorrow after practice. A doubles thing.”  
“A… doubles thing?” Yamaguchi had no idea what the hell Sugawara was talking about.   
“Yeah, we can go out, do something fun, walk through the woods, go get some fast food, the four of us in our twos. It’ll be fun. Maybe Daichi and Tsukki will be able to open up to each other. It’ll be fun! Just like the movies. Cute, huh?”  
“Uh, cute? I guess so. A bunch of friends going out to get over their troubles. Yeah. Yeah, actually that sounds really fun! Let’s do it! Plus, if we’re going out for food, I’d be getting fries for lunch three days in a row. I’ll go tell Tsukki!”  
“Yamaguchi! You shouldn’t be eating fast food three days in a row! It’s bad before such an important game, you should be eating right. Stop running away, stop ignoring me, Yamaguchi!” He grumbled to himself that Yamaguchi didn’t take his advices seriously before nothing that he should probably warn Daichi in advance, or else he’ll be in a foul mood during the entire double date he had planned with Yamaguchi.

“Daichi, can I ask you something?”  
“What?”  
“How do you feel about a little teambuilding thing with Tsukki and Yamaguchi? I know you’re a big grumpy puss about Tsukki, maybe you’ll see he’s fine.”  
“A teambuilding thing like what? Where is this going?”  
“You know, like a double date, they’re so cute together, it’ll be fun!”  
“Oh, they’re officially a couple now?”  
“Well Yamaguchi sure seemed like he was fine with going on a double date so I guess so.”  
“You did tell him it was a double date, right?”  
“Oh, no, it’s fine, he said it would be cute, of course he’s okay with it.”  
“If you say so, I’ll do it for you, sweetie.”  
“I knew I could count on you.” Sugawara planted a quick kiss on Daichi’s lips before skipping back off to practicing receives with the rest of the team. 

Meanwhile, Yamaguchi had run aside to try and convince Tsukki to come along with them and show his lighter side to his senpais.   
“Heeeeeyy Tsukki. I have an idea.”  
“This sounds like it’s going to be a terrible idea that I don’t like. Why are you speaking to me in that tone? What are you planning? I don’t trust it.”  
“Oh, no, I’m not planning anything bad! Just that, ah, Suga asked me if you and I wanted to go out with him and Daichi tomorrow afternoon. I thought it’d be fun so I said yes, you want to come along?”  
“Going out with Daichi and Suga? Why?” Yamaguchi had the option to be honest, he knew that it was a ploy to get Tsukki and Daichi to become friendlier with each other so that he would be able to actually play in the important games before nationals, but he wasn’t sure how Tsukki would react to being forced to try and make amends with somebody.  
“Because it’d be fun! You know, just hanging out, don’t you want to get to know your teammates better?”  
“I just think it’s a little odd for us to be hanging out with a couple. Won’t we be like a third wheel or something? I feel we’d end up getting blown off. Seems like a waste of time.”  
“Oh come on, give it a try. They’re buying lunch. If it gets lame, we can leave. Lighten up for once Tsukki, you’re always telling me to try and hang out with more people, you should be leaping at this opportunity to spend more time with our captain and vice-captain!”  
“Okay, okay, fine, if I say no any more you’ll end up grovelling and desperate on your hands and knees trying to get me to go out. Whatever, I’ll go.”  
“Nice, Tsukki!”


	11. Accidents

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Author Note: From this chapter onwards, the archive warnings will apply. Please make sure that you're comfortable with them before continuing with the story.

Thursday had been a rude awakening for Tsukki, primarily because for the first time in quite some time, the skies had parted and the sun shone through the gaps in his blinds, vertical stripes of shadow and sunlight adorning his bedroom as he dragged himself out of the comfortable warmth of sleep. Perhaps it was a sign of things lighting up in his life, or perhaps it was just convenience as spring drew closer and closer. He was too tired to think about it. Tsukki didn’t have Yamaguchi at his side to walk him to school this morning. It was somewhat disappointing. He knew yesterday was an exceptionally rare occurrence, but he was silently hoping that he would be able to have Yamaguchi visit him in the morning more often. The walk to school was comparatively drab as he drifted through the streets on the way to school, with only his music to accompany him. The planned afternoon out with Daichi and Sugawara was an afterthought for most of the trip until he had remembered just outside the school that he was expected to go and do something, whatever it could have been they had actually wanted to do, with them after practice. Yamaguchi seemed excited, at least, which made him think it must have been something somewhat important. If it made Yamaguchi happy, it made him happy.

School flew by at a blistering pace. Apparently, knowing he had plans for the afternoon made the dire wait for the day to end fly past in sheer lack of excitement at just wanting to get it over and done with. He was going out of obligation, not out of want. Yamaguchi could use the extra time spending quality time with others, although with Daichi and Sugawara, who would both be graduating in a matter of months, it seemed like a rather hopeless endeavour. Not to mention that it would be rather odd for a first year to be making close bonds of friendships with seniors. It was against the general taboos of high school. Tsukki took it for granted how Yamaguchi was lucky to have him as a close friend actually in his first year class, let alone in other classes, like Hinata and Kageyama, or in different years, like Sugawara and Daichi. That said, Tsukki also realised how lucky he was to have Yamaguchi. It was the ideal mutually beneficial friendship.

With a day cut short from practice each week, it wasn’t a surprise to see the team overexerting themselves during their now four practices per week. Still, it had put everyone in peak form. Sugawara had begun to challenge Kageyama for a starting spot on the team, and even the ‘ungrateful second years’ looked like they might be able to hold down a spot on the team. Things were seemingly looking bright for the team, but of course, Daichi (as well as Tanaka and Noya) still had their doubts about Tsukki. Fortunately, their little expedition in to whatever the hell it was that Sugawara and Yamaguchi had planned would hopefully give him a chance to change that. 

The locker room traffic thinned out over time. Casual clothing was the fashion of the afternoon as everyone was beginning to make their ways home. Daichi had come out dressed as he would any day. Sugawara and Yamaguchi both seemed dressed like a winter storm was oncoming and their survival was at stake. Tsukki was confused, and knew that it was something that they had schemed up without telling him or Daichi where they were going. It was best to not question it. They had obviously had their minds settled and were eager to get going with whatever monstrosity they seemed to be planning. It was a disaster waiting to happen in Tsukki’s eyes.

“Alright, the gang’s all here!” Sugawara drew no reaction in his attempt to rally team spirit. Daichi and Tsukki seemed more like they wanted to get it over and done with and Yamaguchi was uncomfortable speaking in a group unless addressed. Sugawara looked at all of them, assessing the situation before pouting at their lack of enthusiasm. “Anyway, we need to go eat first. Let’s go.”  
“Oh, good, Daichi has a permit. I don’t have to walk through the rain this time.” Tsukki flicked his eyes back at Yamaguchi as if it was his fault that the weather had been so forsaking over the previous days. Sugawara and Daichi both looked on confused, not realising that they were missing a part of the conversation that only Yamaguchi would have understood.  
“Oh, we’re not driving anywhere. Why do you think I’m all dressed up warm and snug?”  
“And it’s not raining either.” Daichi’s contribution was meaningless. He had completely misinterpreted Tsukki’s throwback to Tuesday.  
“Exactly. Now let’s get going so before we’re out in the dark.”  
“Can somebody please fill me in here?” Tsukki was beginning to shift his eyes nervously. There was one big secret he wasn’t being let in on by the rest and he was not comfortable having to wait for them to tell him at their own discretion.  
“Suga?”  
“We’re just going on a nice, refreshing scenic walk around the woods nearby. It’s nothing major, but it’ll be nice. It’s a change of pace from how hectic everything has been this week, right?”  
“This is a ploy to try and ‘help’ me, isn’t it? I figured as much.”  
“No! Not at all, but I guess it could help with that. Good mention.” Sugawara was lying through his teeth because he, and also Yamaguchi both knew that Tsukki was very, very against the concept of having people try to meddle in his life. They were clutching at straws in the first place to try and get him to come along. It wouldn’t help now that he had immediately realised thanks to his stellar intuition that they were trying to do a little more than just have some fun.  
“Fine. Let’s go. Like you said, we don’t want to fuck around in the dark in a forest.”  
“Alright! I’m starving. What do you think the biggest thing on the menu is?”  
“Yamaguchi! I told you to watch your food before a big game.”  
“One burger isn’t going to kill my serves, sheesh, give me a break, what are you, my mom?”  
“As team captain, I nominate Suga as team mom. Now do what your mother tells you and let’s get going.”  
“Does that make you daddy?”  
“You two are fucking gross.”  
“It’s not our fault you’re not as comfortable with each other as we are.”  
“The only way I could top you two is if I bent Yamaguchi over the locker room benches and fucked him in front of the team.” Yamaguchi screamed internally at the mental image.  
“Oh come on, we’re not that bad.” Sugawara threw himself in to Daichi, his arm wrapped around his shoulder and his head gently nuzzling at his neck.  
“Whatever. If you want to be one of those annoying couples that shows off their love nonstop, be my guest.”  
“Oh relax, we’re just doing it because you’re complaining. Anyway! We really ought to stop putting this off. Let’s. Go. Now.”

Fast food was uneventful. In fact, even Yamaguchi was getting a little tired of having it so frequently. They just used the free time together to have a little chat about the team. Hopefully, Tsukki wouldn’t become so infuriated that he would abandon their little get together.  
“You know, do you think we have any chance if we make it to nationals?” Volleyball was on the tip of everyone’s tongue, and Yamaguchi was the one to break the ice when it came to nationals. It was the perfect feeder for Daichi to start going on his somewhat preachy rant about how Tsukki’s mentality is bad for it. Of course, he had to be passive aggressive. He couldn’t say it directly to Tsukki’s face.  
“I think we have a great chance. If everyone has the mental fortitude for it, of course.”  
“I’ll say. I was a nervous wreck before the last game. I don’t know how I’d cope in an even bigger one.”  
“Well, you’ll have to. We have to have every single member of the team at their peak. Every single one of them. Even the people who think they’re at their peak already, they’re not, nobody is ready yet, and we need to prepare to make sure that we are.”  
“Spoken like a true leader, Daichi.”  
“Suga! Don’t make me blush in front of the kids.”  
“We’re your kids now?”  
“Spoken like a true father, too, Daichi.”  
“Okay, okay, I get it, I get it. Just remember, if we make it to nationals, there’ll be scouts there. Every match will be hard focused on. Every play matters. It could decide your future. If you think you could have a future in this game, you need to be at your absolute best. It’s an immense opportunity. Of course, we have to get there first. So let’s have everyone be fully fit and fully ready to go for the preliminaries. Alright?”  
“Yamaguchi, did we just get a motivational team talk over dinner?”  
“It’s like a best man’s speech at a wedding, Tsukki!”  
“Well, keep up happy atmospheres like this double date and maybe Daichi will be the best man at your wedding some day!”  
“Double date?”  
“Our wedding?”  
“Yeah. Two young lovebirds like you could use the excuse to go and do something together. Isn’t it fun?”  
“Yamaguchi did you tell Suga we’re dating? What the fuck.”  
“No! I didn’t, I swear, he told me it was just a thing for us to go out and go do something together.”  
“As couples.”  
“He didn’t say that!”  
“Suga, did you tell Tsukki and Yamaguchi that this was a double date?”  
“I think so.”  
“Are we a couple, Tsukki? I don’t think we’re a couple. That’s the first I’ve heard of it.” Yamaguchi was screaming inside, desperate and so hoping that Tsukki would say “Yes, we are a couple,” but he knew that deep down, that wasn’t going to happen. As much as he needed Tsukki to validate his feelings towards him, it was a faint glimmer of hope that ultimately would be snatched from him.  
“God damn it. Why does everyone think we’re dating? Haven’t they seen close friends before? This is everything that’s wrong with the world. Two guys are close, they must be gay! No I look like I’m ready to make out with Yamaguchi right here, right now?”  
“You talked about fucking him over the gym benches earlier Tsukki”  
“It was sarcasm. A joke. Jesus Christ, you guys are… where do I find the words to explain how stupid you are?”  
“Relax, Tsukki. It was just a misunderstanding. Nobody is saying anything about you, let’s just keep up and enjoy the afternoon. Not as a double date, but as friends. Okay? Just as friends.”  
“Whatever, whatever, I just can’t believe you would think something like that.”  
“I can kind of believe it, Tsukki”  
“Well Yamaguchi, I can’t. So let’s drop it and get back to our food before it goes cold so we can get out in to the woods before it gets dark.”  
“I’m just saying, it’s not that bad, we know the truth, so who cares what others think, you know? Let them believe we’re a couple, I don’t care. Tell them when they ask that we aren’t, easy. Who cares what other people think.”  
“Let’s just drop it. I don’t care what people think as long as they don’t say things that are wrong to my face.”  
“Right, wrong.” Yamaguchi looked solemnly in to the distance as a defeated man. It was like he had been punched in the stomach by the fists of rejection, even though it was a completely unintentional time to find out if Tsukki had emotions for him. He had hoped that Tsukki had feelings deep down that he didn’t want to admit at the risk of hurting Yamaguchi, but Yamaguchi knew that the chances of that being the case were minimal. It would have been a fairy-tale ending to an unbelievable story. They group finished their food, and head off to the woods.

The clearing to the forest was rather commercialised. There was a wooden banner advertising the park, a small tourist booth that was closed at this hour, although the woods were still open for the public to go in to. It was a major selling point of the town, so it was understandable. Truly untouched natural beauty was hard to come across anyways. It was fine with them, they just wanted a nice walk amongst the trees for some refreshing, harmless evening fun. Unfortunately, they were no less than twenty minutes in to walking around the forest when the so very clear skies that had finally shone through all day were sealed by a thick grey wall of cloud. No sooner did they start to notice the sun setting behind them, the rain began to pour. Suddenly, it was very dark, very wet and very uncomfortable. They were at least confident that they knew the way back, and the trees provided some minimal shelter from the rain in certain areas below the canopy. However, it wasn’t like that the entire way, it was a given that they would get wet, a recurring theme in the last week.

They decided it would be best to make a run for it before things got darker still. A twenty minute walk through the woods would only take half as much time to get out of them, especially when as volleyball players their cardiovascular ability was significantly above average. It was an unfortunate end to the day, but at least they had had a reasonable amount of fun along the way. Tsukki with his comparatively long legs lead the pack, while Yamaguchi tailed ever so slightly behind, somewhat surprising everyone with his pace. Daichi and Sugawara were happy to run next to each other a little further back. It was somewhat romantic to them to be running through the rain together. Even if the modus operandi had changed, it was still a date for Daichi and Sugawara and they intended to make the very best of it while they still could. 

Tsukki and Yamaguchi came to a screeching halt. They heard a loud wailing behind them in an unfortunately familiar tone. They ran back for a moment to see Sugawara laying on the ground, clutching his ankle with Daichi resting his hands on his shoulders to try and comfort him.  
“Suga, how bad is it, can you walk?”  
“Look at it! Fucking look at it Daichi, does it look okay!?” It was the first time they had heard Sugawara swearing. It was a surreal experience. However the surreal could be topped once he had moved his hands away from the ankle he was trying to protect. At the sight, Yamaguchi immediately ran towards the nearest tree, unable to hold his sheer disgust at the horrible looking injury Sugawara had sustained, and threw up behind it. Tsukki could hardly look at the damage done either. There was a cripplingly noticeable bulge in Sugawara’s sock, highlighted by the ring of blood surrounding it. It was a horrible, horrible compound fracture that had all but mangled his ankle. Sugawara was half torn between screaming every time he talked, and muffling himself by biting on the shoulder of his jacket. With no time to waste sitting in the rain, Daichi immediately hoisted him in to his arms and started trying to run with Tsukki and Yamaguchi as they needed to get out of the forest as fast as possible, but he couldn’t. The extra weight was too much to carry. He was doing his best, but there was only so much one man was capable of.  
“Daichi, we’ll help.”  
“No! Just get the hell out of here, get some phone signal and call a damn ambulance so when we get out, it’ll be waiting.”  
“Only one of us needs to, I’ll help.”  
“Both of you just get the hell out of here. If we both try and carry him we’ll be all out of synch and it won’t help at all. Stop wasting time and go for god’s sake.”  
“Okay, okay!”

The pair got out, and as instructed, frantically dialled for the ambulance. It still hadn’t arrived by the time Daichi emerged from the entrance with Sugawara bundled against his chest, practically infuriating Daichi.  
“Come on! You’re supposed to be fucking fast to help people. What if the dirt from the forest gets in his leg and kills him? What if they have to cut his leg off? For fucks sake, you’re supposed to help, hurry the hell up and get here you shitty doctors!” Daichi’s anger highlighted to Tsukki and Yamaguchi that they knew that there was no way that Sugawara was going to be able to play in any of the upcoming games leading up to nationals, and maybe not nationals at all if they do manage to make it, especially when it looked so damaged to the point of needing extensive repair to fix.

Eventually, the paramedics did arrive, immediately rolling their eyes as Daichi screamed “Finally!” at them as they emerged from the back of the ambulance. All Tsukki and Yamaguchi wanted was just one day free of drama. It was evidently far too much to ask in what continued to be just another terrible ending to what had started out as such a promising day. Sugawara was carted off with Daichi tagging along in the back seat. Yamaguchi and Tsukki were forced to make their own way home in the dark and pouring rain. Fortunately the forest was midway between each of their homes, but it was still a good half hour journey each way.  
“Yamaguchi, remember that I’m going to be at the dentists tomorrow so uh, bring any stuff you need for coming over to my place tomorrow and walk your way there. I’ll be home and fine for the afternoon, but I’ll be missing class. You know the way right?”  
“Yep! Straight on to the mochi store, then turn right after it and go down to the end of the estate. I’ve been to your house plenty of times before Tsukki. I’m not a child.”  
“Okay, okay, I’ll see you tomorrow then. I just need to get some damn rest after all this drama that’s always going on.”  
“I feel you, Tsukki. Goodbye and goodnight!”  
“Bye, Yamaguchi. And by the way, even despite all this, today was fun. I get that it was meant to be a double date, but we should go out like this more often, as friends.”  
“Yeah. I’d like that, Tsukki.”  
“Well, goodbye then. See you tomorrow.”  
“Bye!”


	12. Confusion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everything will be all right.

If the obnoxious whirring would stop, you would be able to hear a pin drop in the room. The occasional sounds of an assistant clattering away at a keyboard struggled to override the drilling noises in front of Tsukki. The room felt unusually warm, drawing a lone drop of sweat down from his brow as he lay back in the chair. Sitting still was a struggle, chills shook through his body overriding the abnormal heat. A faint pain in the jaw was a temporary seal of having overcome the envisioned trauma that was holding back a minor panic as he took his injection. It would pain Tsukki to admit it, but he was afraid of the dentist.

His Friday has completely shattered his usual routine. Knowing he wouldn’t be in school the next day, Tsukki had slept at three in the morning with the expectation of waking up at noon so he could be at the dentist’s office for 1:30. Instead, he had worked himself in to a nervous state of being unable to sleep and having a pain in his stomach that was purely stress related, building himself up to the idea that something would go horribly wrong. Tsukki didn’t know how to deal with fear in the slightest, it was an abnormality in his life. He passed it off to his parents as food poisoning, but really, he was too high and mighty to admit he was scared without reason. There was no traumatic experience to fall back on, there was no history of him ever having a difficult experience. If anything, his fear was the worst part about the entire situation. Sleep deprived and living his day out in fear, he dragged himself off with his mother to the dentist’s office, often having to force himself from falling asleep in the waiting room chair. He occasionally glanced to the opposite side of the room and sympathising with a five year old who seemed to share a similar feeling. He decided to ignore the ten year age gap when considering the scenario. It was somewhat comforting knowing he wasn’t the only person acting as such, until the boy disappeared in to the dentist’s clinic labelled ‘3’. He didn’t re-emerge before Tsukki was called in to room 2.

It wasn’t even close to any sort of major work, just a filling, but Tsukki had built it up to be torture, even if it was thirty minutes in then out. He had little alternatives to sitting still and trying to focus elsewhere. In this case, he was fantasizing about the multitude of entertaining things that he and Yamaguchi would do that evening once he arrived. First of all, he wanted them to finish the dinosaur show that they had started last week before collapsing in a heap and falling asleep. Then they’d follow it up with a true sleepover junk food dinner of pancakes and ice cream. To follow, Tsukki had bought a new multiplayer game purely so he could play it with Yamaguchi once he came over. By the time he was done anticipating the evening, he was already done with the dentist and ready to go. Evidently, even if Yamaguchi wasn’t there, he was still the best distraction for him.

Having paid with the money is mother had left him to pay for himself, as neither of his parents could accompany him, he headed out and back home to recuperate. He would need his mouth to feel a little less numb for when Yamaguchi arrived, mainly because Tsukki dreaded the idea of his speech being slurred, and Yamaguchi picking up on it and shattering his cool façade. He began walking while still digging around in his rucksack, looking for his headphones so he had something to distract him from constantly poking his tongue against the numbness in his cheek as he walked home. Thanks to the loud music diverting his attention away from the world around him, when a car had pulled up behind him, and the driver stepped out, he hadn’t even realised who it was until they put a hand on his shoulder.

“Captain.” It had come out of his mouth more like ‘Capthin’.  
“Tsukishima. What brings you to cutting class?”  
“I could say the same for you.” Daichi snickered at the muddled attempt at speech he had been presented with as he put two and two together. He couldn’t speak, he had just passed the dentist’s office, and he was cutting class.  
“Well, I’m heading towards the hospital. I don’t really know where you live, if you’re going in that direction, I can cut down your travel time.” Tsukki nodded in appreciation and hopped in to the passenger’s seat, not wanting to speak at all if he couldn’t speak clearly. At some point he would have to say where to let him out, but he could put that aside for a little bit.

It was a rather quiet ride for the most part. Daichi didn’t have much of an idea of how to try and talk to Tsukki and make general conversation, especially when he had absolutely no desire to try and respond at this point. It was easier to just let the radio play softly in the background, only barely audible over the noises of the engine revving as they sped down the road towards the hospital, with Tsukki bailing at some point in-between. Tsukki had used the time to think about what Daichi had said when they had only minutes ago met on the streets. He had also been cutting class, and admitting it too. There was a small bouquet of flowers in the back seat, undoubtedly to be delivered to Sugawara. It had him reflect on what it truly entailed to care of somebody. If Yamaguchi was in the hospital, would he bring him flowers to try and cheer him up? Daichi and Sugawara were a couple, he and Yamaguchi were not, but they had known each other for just as long, they were best friends, they were as close as two people can be in a platonic way. Would Yamaguchi do the same for him? He had to put said thoughts aside momentarily as he saw the upcoming junction that he would have to get off at to walk the rest of the way home, calling out for Daichi to pull over at his nearest convenience. However, before he did so, Tsukki had to ask Daichi one quick question, suddenly not caring at all if he sounded a little funny. His mind had been caught up on something.

“Daichi, why exactly are you cutting class and bringing flowers for Suga?”  
“Because he’d appreciate it. I don’t remember him ever being in a hospital before. Let alone needing to have surgery. He’s probably a little nervous, and I want to help out in his time of need.”  
“Ok, but skipping school to do it? Can’t it wait three hours? Why now?”  
“Suga means more than anything to me. In a time like this, he really needs somebody. I want to show that I care for him. I want to go the extra mile and let him know that somebody cares, that he’s safe and loved. That’s just it, really, when people are in a time of uncertainty and fear of the unknown, a lot of people just need somebody to let them know that they care and that everything will be all right, so that’s what I’m trying to provide. Hopefully you don’t get thrown in to this position yourself, not that it’s life threatening or anything, he’ll be fine, but if you have somebody that you really and truly care about, and something happens to them, you’d understand how I feel. Hopefully, they’d do the same for you. Anyway! This is your stop, I’ll let you get on your way, unless you want to join me in my visit. Hopefully I can arrive before they take him in for surgery.”  
“Oh, right, okay, thanks Daichi but I’m expecting somebody later on at home. See you in practice on Monday.”  
“All right, take care.” Daichi shut the door behind him and whizzed off in one direction as Tsukki walked home in the other, eventually getting back, kicking off his shoes and relaxing, waiting for Yamaguchi to eventually show up in two or three hours.

And waiting, and waiting, and waiting, and Yamaguchi didn’t come. He thought he might have gotten a little lost, so he called, but he got no response. His texts went through, but never showed up as seen. He called the rest of the team to find out if he had gone home sick or something, everyone said that Yamaguchi was fine. Yachi had told him that he was in their final class of the day and seemed fine, excited even. He entertained the idea that he had just stopped to eat on the way like they had a week ago. After all, if he had stopped to eat, he would arrive at the same time in the evening as they had last week. On top of that, he probably wouldn’t have been walking as fast as it was finally dry, and he didn’t have to keep up with Tsukki walking at a blistering pace. He gave it more time, waiting and waiting further. Yamaguchi probably wasn’t checking his phone while walking so he wouldn’t bump in to things. His depth perception wasn’t exactly the best when texting. Waiting and waiting further. The skies turned dark as the sun began to set, the rain began to pick up as it had for most of the week prior. Tsukki’s mother walked in, asking why Yamaguchi hadn’t shown up yet, as she thought they had some sort of agreement going on. Akiteru eventually walked in and did the same, being angrily snapped at as Tsukki told him that he didn’t know.

Panic had begun to set in in the Tsukishima household. Tsukki was afraid that the absolute worst has happened. His mother couldn’t dare to have another person’s child get hurt or the like under what is by proxy her supervision, and Akiteru just didn’t want to see Tsukki upset with something involving his one friend. Tsukki was getting grumpy, every time somebody spoke to him or gave a suggestion, he growled back at them. Akiteru had walked off at some point, which Tsukki interpreted as him not caring in the slightest, adding further fuel to his foul, worried mood, and his already underlying disapproval of Akiteru. More and more time passed, and Yamaguchi was still nowhere to be seen.

Eventually, the home phone rang. Tsukki grabbed it in a panic hoping that for some reason Yamaguchi had lost his phone or something, and something had come up, so he would have to phone his house, anything Tsukki could come up with to desperately rationalise why Yamaguchi wasn’t there. Instead, it was his own father just letting the family know to put the dinner on as he was on his way home. When he was filled in with the details of the situation, he immediately acknowledged it, hung up and began speeding home himself to try and help out in whatever way he could. The evening began to roll further and further on, and no progress was made.

The glare of car headlights shone through the window as Tsukki’s father returned home, immediately bursting through the door, with what was on the brink of sheer venom in his voice.  
“Where’s Akiteru? Why isn’t everyone doing everything to try and find that boy?”  
“In his room, I think? He just left and stopped helping at some point.”  
“His damn car’s not in the driveway. I don’t care if he doesn’t want to help, the least he can do is fucking try for somebody’s wellbeing. Who knows where the hell he could be.”  
“Honey, I know you’re upset, but try not to swear in front of the kids.”  
“Sorry, sorry. Look, what can I do to help?”  
“Call the police, maybe? Or his parents for starters. Has nobody called his parents yet? We have to let them know, maybe he’s with them. Let’s-”  
They were cut off by the ringing of the home phone yet again. Again, Tsukki immediately scrambled to pick it up on the very, very faint hope that it would be something that could help them. On the other end was Akiteru. “Great,” Tsukki thought, it was yet another call that didn’t help at all. He sarcastically responded when Akiteru somewhat urgently called out “Kei!” on the other end of the phone, before eventually having to listen to whatever droning nonsense he had to say. However, the longer the call went on, the wider Tsukki’s eyes grew, eventually dropping the phone and rushing to the closet to grab shoes and a jacket, yelling at his father to get the car keys again and get going. 

“Kei! I drove around the area to see if I could find anything, and, uh, I did. I found him.”


	13. Rescue

“Just get out if you’re not going to help!”  
“I’m just… I’m trying, Kei. I’ll go if I’m making thing worse…”

All Akiteru wanted to do was try and lend a hand and help find Yamaguchi. He felt it was some sort of moral duty for him to try and find and protect Tsukki’s best friend. A little something to try and get back in to his good backs. He didn’t like seeing a potentially threatening situation being an opportunity for him to try and win over his brother, but it was hard for him to see it as anything else. He did care for Yamaguchi, but he cared for Tsukki more than anything, and seeing him happy would have been the absolute best thing right now in such a troubling time.

Rather than sit around and mope that he had been scolded by his little brother, he grabbed his jacket and his keys from upstairs before dashing back down and jumping in to the car, pulling out and driving the route from their home to Karasuno on the faint hope that he would be able to find Yamaguchi in the dark as his windscreen was repeatedly pounded by the heavy rain, blinding his vision every second before being wiped away from a brief moment of clarity. There would be something exceptionally wrong if he scanned this route over and over and Yamaguchi was nowhere to be seen. It wouldn’t make sense that he’d have gone anywhere else, but if he wasn’t picking up, and he wasn’t at home, it would take some exceptionally good explanation as to why he was taking multiple hours to take a familiar route. Still, there was the constant faint glimmer of hope that he had just managed to shelter himself from the rain somewhere, or his phone had died, or he’d gone home. Anything would be more reasonable than the worst case scenarios that Akiteru tried his hardest to subdue to the back of his mind.

The longer the duration of the car ride went on, the more frustrated Akiteru became. With a forceful hit, he shunted the radio off to escape the sorrowful sounds of a dreary, downbeat song that reeked of the kind of suffering that he just wanted to avoid right now. He frantically shook his head left and right checking out the windows of both sides to try and spot Yamaguchi.  
“Damn this fucking rain, it’s just water. Yamaguchi!” He rolled down the windows and started erratically shouting outside the window, quickly soaking his face as he slowed his speed, creeping down the road, soon drenching the interior as the open window gave the rain free reign to ruin whatever he had inside. That was just an afterthought at this point. It would be preferable to have to take Yamaguchi home in a wet car than to come home empty handed. There was absolutely no expectation on him other than what he imposed on himself. He hadn’t told anyone at home that he was going out. He had just slipped out silently in his own desperate rush to try and be the hero that Tsukki needed, that Yamaguchi needed, that he himself needed to be. 

“Not now, not now! For fucks sake! Give me a break just once in my god damn life, please!?” Akiteru slammed his hands against the dashboard in anger as his wipers had frozen up midway through the screen, completely blinding his view. His options were becoming more and more struck with limitation. He tried to drive on, keeping up his slow and steady pace, his head outside of the window calling for Yamaguchi was now his main source of direction, even if the rain constantly blinded his view, even in the open air. 

The roads were abnormally quiet given the time of day. The few stragglers from rush hour were nowhere to be seen. The road was usually only just beginning to clear from the go home traffic, and yet, there was hardly a car to be seen in sight. On any other day, he would have assumed that the road had been closed for whatever reason. Instead, it was just deathly quiet, the accompanying sounds of rain were the only outside contribution to the cacophony of the revving engines. Even still, it felt like the silence of a library as he inched his way down the road. 

After what felt like an eternity, eventually the sounds of another vehicle picked up behind him and were followed by aggressive honking of the car horn. Right, he was trudging down the road at a snail’s pace. Rather than take the smart option of letting him overtake him, he began picking up his speed, hurtling down the road, his vision completely impaired yet still trying his hardest to keep on the road like a regular driver, even if it was compromising his attempt at finding Yamaguchi. He was confused, scared and unable to handle the pressure.  
“Shit, shit! What was that!?” Akiteru’s car skidded to a sudden stop, narrowly avoiding a wall, and the car behind him narrowly avoiding slamming in to him, taking them both out at the same time. Instead, he angrily shouted out of his window as he passed Akiteru’s now somewhat sideways car bunched up on the side of the road. Akiteru hopped out of his car, staring down in pure horror in what lay limply at the front of his car. A double flat tyre. He wasn’t going anywhere further with his car. A domino effect of one catastrophe after another had left him immobile and suck in the middle of the rain, no end in sight, no Yamaguchi in sight.

The smart option would have been to call police, or call an ambulance, or firemen, or anyone who would be able to help. He couldn’t exactly think straight in this situation. Maybe Tsukki and his mother had called for them back home. Maybe they thought he was still in his room. Maybe Yamaguchi had been found and they didn’t tell him. Surely they’d eventually realise that he wasn’t there. Surely when his father got home from work he’d notice the car missing. Perhaps he would be in just as much of a panic as everyone else. Then again, why would he even know in the first place? He’s driven home from work. He wouldn’t know the situation on his way home, surely? They would call Yamaguchi’s mother first, or the emergency services. Not his own father. Who would that help? It was irrelevant at this point. All that he could think clearly on, and barely at that, was trying to help. He dashed out of his car in the rain, locking it in the middle of the road and making a run down the streets the rest of the way there to try and hope that there would be at least some indicator of where Yamaguchi could be. 

Options were beginning to run dry, and it was becoming less and less likely that he would be able to find something. He had to constantly lie to himself to continue his earth-shattering motivation on the faint glimmer of hope that he would be able to do something, anything to contribute to the cause. He was dripping wet and exhausted, panting as he struggled to keep up a jogging pace down the road. Each step he took felt like he was being dragged two steps back and was covering no ground at all. Everything was beginning to feel futile as if he had hit an imaginary wall in front of him, blocking him from trying to be the hero of the day. He couldn’t bring himself to get past it. All his willpower and determination so far had meant nothing as he collapsed in a heap against a wall at the side of the road, tears streaming down his face as a broken man. Faith had been destroyed, he knew what he was doing was hopeless. He knew that he would find Yamaguchi on the news having been kidnapped, or in a riverbed or something, anything. The worst case scenarios were the only scenarios in his mind. The positives were a non-issue. Akiteru had reached the territory of damage control and could only hope that he could at least find Yamaguchi alive rather than safe and sound. Hell, he was beginning to think he didn’t even want to find Yamaguchi anymore. After so much effort, he wouldn’t even be able to stomach seeing Yamaguchi in any unfit state. He screamed in frustration as he tried to restrain the negative thoughts that were all flowing through him at that moment. “Yamaguchi’s fucked. You won’t find him,” “Did you hear about that little freckled kid at Karasuno they found in a ditch?”

Akiteru was snapped back in to reality as a loud wailing noise disrupted his wallowing in misery. An ambulance that was seemingly speeding towards him was suddenly slowing down, aggressively turning left at the first opportunity before stopping dead in its tracks. Akiteru disregarded everything that was holding him down, crashing through the wall holding him back to muster every ounce of energy on the faint hope that it could be something, anything that would lead him to Yamaguchi. Akiteru almost collapsed with fatigue as he stopped next to the ambulance to see what was happening.  
“Sir, do you know this woman?” Akiteru’s heart split in two on the spot. It was just a stranger. No Yamaguchi to be found. He could hardly speak through his panting in exhaustion.  
“No. No I don’t.” The EMT’s pulled the stranger in to the back of the ambulance before beginning to drive away. “Wait! Wait I need you help! It’s an emergency!”  
“What is it? This is an emergency too you know.”  
“My friend. He’s missing. I need to find him.”  
“Uh, hold tight here, we’ll call the police and they’ll be over in five to start a search, and-“  
“I don’t have time for that! He could be dying right now!” On those words, Akiteru went back to sprinting his way around the suburbs, stumbling and trying to find his footing as he darted around one corner to the next street. The ambulance sped past him, and within minutes, he heard sirens around where they were talking as they had called for some backup as promised, but Akiteru had already made his run to try and do everything by himself. A one man army fighting an unwinnable battle. The sirens got closer and closer and closer until they were next to Akiteru, pulling over in front of him.  
“Hey! Are you the kid who was shouting at the meds about your lost friend?”  
“Yes.”  
“Young kid? Freckles?”  
“Yeah! You find him?”  
Get in, quickly. Another’s on its way”  
“Another’s on its way? What?”  
“The ambulance. Get in.”  
“He’s hurt? Shit. Shit this isn’t right. This can’t be right. This isn’t how it’s meant to happen. I was meant to find him! And he would be safe and sound. And Tsukki would be thankful, and he’d stop hating me, and, and I… I’d help… I…”  
“I’m going to fucking go without you if you don’t get in.”  
“Okay, okay, please just do anything to help him.”

It took no more than a couple of minutes to arrive. There was already another police car parked and obstructing the view of the side of the road. Two police officers circled what was unmistakably lying in front of them. His innocent body was thrown in to a lifeless heap, resting on an arbitrarily placed bed of cracked glass that had surely come from a windscreen. The glimmer of the rain had washed away most of the blood that seemed to trickle from his forehead straight to the floor. Both his arm and his leg looked as if they belonged to an inhuman creature as they rested at unnatural angles on the floor. He lay on his back, eyes closed, silent, his breath faint but inaudible amongst the panic around him. For once in his life, Yamaguchi looked as if he was free from everything around him that had left his life so hectic and panicked for years. Yet somehow, he looked at peace. At peace with everything in his life. Content.  
“Yamaguchi! …Tadashi!”  
“Stay back, you’ll only make things worse if you try to help if you’re not a doctor.”  
“But, but I-“  
“Just wait! There’s nothing you can do.”  
“I need to! I need to do anything to help!”  
“If you want to help, call everyone who needs to know there’s something wrong. The ambulance will be here in a sec, go with them, but I can’t guarantee they’ll let you in. It looks serious.”  
“Right, right!” Akiteru grabbed his phone out of his pocket and pulled out his speed dial as quick as humanly possible, doped up on adrenaline and desperate yet beyond fearful of having to tell his family what had happened.  
“Hello?” he heard on the other end of the phone.  
“Kei! I drove around the area to see if I could find anything, and, uh, I did. I found him.”


	14. Terror

“We’re at the hospital. It’s really, really not good.”  
“You’re lying to me.”  
“I wish I was lying. I absolutely wish I was lying. I have no idea what happened. I went out, I went out and I looked for him. Did you think I’ve been in my room all this time? I’m soaking wet, I’m exhausted, and my car is trashed on the side of the road. I did everything I could do to try and help.”  
“Akiteru…”  
“Kei, I’m sorry, but he needs you here, I know the hospital is a long way to go, I know you don’t want to hear this, I know your worst fears are coming to life, but I have no reason to lie to you about this. Please, please just get here as fast as you can. Who the hell knows if it’ll be too late if you don’t/ Things are really bad.”  
“Don’t you dare, don’t you ever say that it’ll be too late. Yamaguchi will be fine. He’ll be fine and we’ll keep playing volleyball and he’ll keep coming over to sleep beside me, and he’ll… and he’ll…”

The phone cut off on Akiteru’s end. Tsukki had slumped to his knees, the complete disregard for everything else around him had resulted in the phone being slammed in to the ground as suddenly a decade of emotions began to flow out of him. Tears streamed down his face, confused at how this could happen, anger at how he could let it happen, he wanted to blame himself, he wanted to blame everyone around him. He couldn’t cope with the thought of losing Yamaguchi in any aspect of his life, let alone the entirety of it. His exceptionally adverse reaction lead to obvious confusion for his parents, as they didn’t hear the other end of the phone call. As much as they pressed him to find out what was wrong, what happened, what they can help, if it’s okay, Tsukki was breaking down in front of them, unable to speak, unable to show any coherency, just loud, never-stopping tears.  
“Kei, we can’t help if you don’t tell us what’s wrong damn it!”  
“Don’t yell at him like this, it won’t help anyone!”  
“H…”  
“What?”  
“Hos… hospital. Go to the hospital.”  
“Oh god, Kei, I’m so sorry, how bad is it, what’s wrong? Did they say what happened to him?”  
“Don’t bother asking questions to him, let’s just go. Come on Kei, grab a jacket. Let’s go. What are you just sitting there for? Come on! Let’s go, don’t you want to see Yamaguchi?”  
“I… I don’t know what I want.”

Tsukki’s father had grabbed him by the arm, practically dragging him upwards and going towards the car, opening the back door and almost throwing him in the back, rushing to the driver’s seat and strapping on his seatbelt his mother dived in to the passenger seat. They jolted out of the driveway showing no regard whatsoever for speed limits and laws of the road. The rain continued to pour down, battering the windshield with faltering the entire time.  
“Shit! Who the fuck parks their car on the side of a main road? What the hell is this clown’s agenda? Fuck! It’s like they’re trying to kill us.”  
“Honey, slow down for a second, reverse, is that Akiteru’s car?”  
“What are you talking about?” The grinded to a sudden stop and Tsukki’s father hopped out, investigating it. It leant unevenly towards the front and right owing to the punctured tire, and the wipers were resting halfway between the bottom and the top of the windscreen. “Oh my god, it is.”  
“You don’t think?”  
“Don’t say that, don’t say it with Kei here. Who knows how he would react. He would be able to take it. He would think it’s a certainty that he did, let’s just get there and ask Akiteru himself when we get there. Surely it couldn’t have been him… I really, really pray that it wasn’t.”

They pulled up in the hospital car park, dashing out of the doors and rushing right through the hospital front entrance and charging their way up to the receptionists’ desk. The atmosphere in the waiting room was solemn. Silence loomed in the room. A dozen or so people with assorted ailments sat quietly, not wanting to intrude on the macabre mood of the hospital. All eyes in the room stared at the Tsukishima family, yelling at the receptionist about how they needed to urgently find Yamaguchi. Some listened out of inability to focus on anything else in the dullness of the room, others out of curiosity, all silently judging. The general tones of cream, white and a pale green adorning the walls and furniture may as well have been grey. Grey like the spirits of all those who waited for the inevitable bad news that would come for most patients. Grey like the destitute atmosphere. Grey like the void that once contained hope in Tsukki’s heart.  
“He’s in the secondary ward and in critical care, having been checked in forty minutes ago.”  
“All right, thank you.”  
“Sir, you can’t go in there outside of visiting hours.”  
“We don’t care if it’s not visiting hours, do you have any idea!? This kid could be dying. This kid could be dying alone in a cold hospital room after lying on the fucking street bleeding out alone and afraid for hours. Let us in the god damn room, he needs it right now!”  
“Sir, it’s of the best interest of the patient if he is treated with the room the doctors need to help. You will only be in the way, especially in a critical situation.”  
“Bullshit.”  
“Kei, where are you going?”  
“Where the fuck do you think!?”

Meanwhile, two boys lay comfortably in a well-lit private room. The flowers adorning the table next to him were a bright spark amongst the drab hospital décor, even if they would have to be removed at night. Get well soon cards were placed around them, with a box of chocolates and a stuffed bear amongst them. Daichi had made extra special care to keep Sugawara’s spirits as high as possible during his torrid time of treatment. As he sat at the edge of the bed, Sugawara’s hand in his own, Daichi caught a glimpse of a tall blonde boy dashing past the room in an urgent panic. Getting up to investigate, he recognized Tsukki, calling him back to their room.  
“Changed your mind and you’ve come to visit? It’s awfully late. Did you get lost trying to find us?”  
Tsukki completely blanked him, running down the halls, still in a state of sheer desperation. Sugawara had immediately sensed something being wrong from his own bed, grabbing his crutches and hobbling out of bed and trying to rush down the hallway to follow him. Daichi had tried to stop him as he limped and struggled to adjust to walking with a crutch, but he could see the fire in Sugawara’s eyes to try and do something about a situation he had perceived to be happening, knowing the delicate knife edge that Tsukki’s mental state rested upon. He had finally caught up to Tsukki as he stood in sheer awe between the doorways looking at the sight in front of him. Once he had gotten at the same distance as Tsukki, he joined him in shock.

“I need mannitol for the brain swelling. Somebody wrap his leg to stop the bleeding, 500mg of tranexamic acid, and a saline IV drip for the hypothermia, quickly, quickly we don’t want to lose this kid.”  
“Tadashi!”  
“Sir, Sir, please, you can’t be here right now.”  
“He needs me right now!”  
“He needs medical care. We can’t provide that with you standing there.”  
“I can’t, I can’t leave him.”  
“Sir, if you don’t leave we’ll need to call security.”  
“Call whoever the fuck you want!”  
“Security, we’ve got an aggressive visitor refusing to leave”  
“Doctor, he’s flat lining, grab the defibrillators.”  
“Get out of the way, kid! He could die!”  
“D-die?”  
“Is this your visitor, doctor?”  
“Yes.”  
“All right kid, come with us.”  
“Hey, get off me! Get the fuck off of me! Tadashi! Tadashi stay in there! God damn it let me be with him you fucking monsters. He can’t die. He can’t die alone. He needs me there. Please, please!”  
“It’s procedure.”  
“Fuck your procedure!”  
Tsukki fought against the two security drags forcibly dragging him out of the ward, kicking and screaming, even clipping his fist against one guard’s cheek as they hauled him out of the room. The entire time, Sugawara watching on, tears streaming down his face at the horrors in front of him. He couldn’t understand how Yamaguchi had ended up like this. He couldn’t understand how Tsukki must have been feeling, and yet, he knew he had to do something, he had to try and talk sense in to Tsukki.

“Tsukishima! Listen to me, please!”  
“Sugawara!? How the hell did you get here?”  
“I’ve been here since Thursday. Look, Tsukki, I know you’re scared, I know you’re terrified of losing Yamaguchi, I know that he means more to you than anything on this planet, and I know that it feels so much worse to know that you could lose him without being able to do anything, but you need to calm down.”  
“Calm down!? Calm fucking down!? Tadashi is in there and his life is at risk, and you’re telling me to calm down? Why the fuck aren’t you just as worried as I am!?”  
“Tsukki, I’m mortified, look at me, I’m bawling my eyes out here, because I’m scared too. I don’t want to lose a teammate. I don’t want to see you destroyed losing a teammate. I want everything to be okay, and I want everything to stay the same. I’m terrified, Tsukki. I’m terrified beyond any fear I have ever felt in my entire life. But you need to listen to me, Tsukki. They’re doing everything they can to help. They’re trying to save him. You’re not a doctor. You can’t help him right now. These people can. These people are trying their damned hardest to make everything okay and go back to the way it was. You have to stay strong, and you have to back away and hope and pray and beg that luck is on our side and Yamaguchi will be okay. Tsukki, it’s for the best. Please, Tsukki.”  
“All people need sometimes is somebody to say that they care, take a guess who said that, Suga.”  
“Tsukki-“  
“What? Right now, Tadashi needs me. He needs me to say that I care. He needs somebody to help. I don’t care if he can’t hear it. I don’t care if he doesn’t realise it. At this moment, more than anything, Tadashi has to be told that I care, that everything will get better, everything will be okay, that he’s so important to me, and to the team, and he needs to know, damn it!”

The pair were cut off as the trolley with Yamaguchi charged through the flapping doors to the ward and out through the hallway. The CPR had fortunately come to a stop, but there was still an ominous look of fear, concern and lack of hope amongst the doctors. Tsukki chased after them, Sugawara calling his name to come back, as they all scrambled in to a lift. There was no room for Tsukki, and the doors slammed shut in front of him. He collapsed to his knees, his forehead resting on the shut lift door towering in his face, tears streaming down his face, a beaten, broken man. He pounded his fists against the lift door, anger, and fear and concern all flowing through his body, needing somewhere to be channelled.  
“I let him down.”


	15. Help

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's not like things could get worse, right?

The walk to the waiting room for family and friends felt like the most arduous and tormenting journey of five minutes of navigating hallways. The usual cool and collected swagger that Tsukki boasted in his step had been reduced to a slow slump throughout the hospital as everything around him became irrelevant, forced to wait for when it suited other people to visit Yamaguchi, not when he thought it was best. Tsukki had blacked out those around him, those staring, and those who offered to help and guide him. Tsukki had no time to spare a thought for those who were quietly judging or starting at his languid steps throughout primarily barren corridors, trudging in as downtrodden a manner as he could. He felt weak, fatigued, and as if there was no reason to go on with anything in his life anymore. All he could experience was emptiness, disappointment and regret at what he could have done to help. Deep down, Tsukki blamed himself. He made the choice to let Yamaguchi come on his own. He made the choice to have Friday be the day he would miss class. He made the choice to wait so long for Yamaguchi to arrive, leaving him out in the cold, hurt and alone for longer. He made the choice to not immediately call the authorities. He made the choice to tell Akiteru to stop helping. He couldn’t even begin to imagine how Yamaguchi’s parents were feeling, as he realised that by this point in time, nobody had even shown the basic initiative to call them when Yamaguchi was in such a desperate situation.

Tsukki could only narrowly avoid collapsing through the door of the waiting room as he felt brief respite knowing he could sit down, and try to relax, take his mind off the situation, think rationally, and tell himself that everything would be okay. He dreaded the thoughts of his last sight of Yamaguchi being that of a group of troubled looking doctors dragging him out of his grasp. He looked around the waiting room. Tattered magazines three or more months out of date adorned the tables. The chairs were uncomfortable, generic, plastic atrocities that would not look out of place in the school classrooms. Potted plants lay on most tables to try and brighten the mood of the already brightly painted and brightly lit room, obviously some sort of attempt by the hospital to keep spirits up while they waited. In one chair, nestled in the far corner of the room next to the window, half covered by partially closed slatted blinds, sat Akiteru.

“Kei! Thank god you’re here! Have you heard how Yamaguchi’s doing? Do you know how he is? Are Mom and Dad here?”  
“What… what happened to Tadashi?”  
“I’ll tell you if you tell me if he’s okay or not.”  
“Last I saw he was about to fucking die, now tell me what happened.”  
“Oh my god. Is he…? Uh, anyway. I’m not really sure what happened. After you told me to get out if I didn’t want to help, I thought to myself, “I’m not giving up this easily,” so I took the car out to drive around the route from home to Karasuno to see if I could find him.”  
“And that’s where you found him?”  
“Well, actually, it wasn’t me who found him. By chance I came across some ambulances helping somebody else, so I told them the story, and they called the police, and the police found him, then they found me and took me there to see him with the ambulances tending to him.”  
“So you never saw what happened?”  
“Nope. It looked like a hit and run.”

Tsukki paused, a venomous look spread over his face as his questioning began to become more and more intense, as if there was something Akiteru wasn’t telling him, as if he didn’t believe the story he told him.  
“Why was your car on the side of the road looking damaged?”  
“It was raining and my wipers died halfway through the journey. I couldn’t see anything but didn’t want to stop looking, so I kept going on. The problem was that I couldn’t see anything. I ended up driving over something and it blew my front tire so I had to pull it over, get out and try looking the rest of the way on foot. I was running through the rain for a long time trying to help. I was doing everything I could.”  
“That’s not right.”  
“Pardon?”  
“That’s not right. You’re telling me you just happened to crash your car, and Yamaguchi just happened to get hit by a car, and the police just happened to find him with you not there, and you just happened to encounter some paramedics by chance?”  
“You’re not saying that I-“  
Tsukki stormed over to Akiteru and cut him off by grabbing a bunch of fabric on his jacket, hoisting him up and dragging him face to face, close enough for their foreheads to be touching as Tsukki began yelling with hours, days, weeks of pent up emotions bursting through their seams at long last.  
“You’re damn fucking right I’m saying it! You hit him! You drove off afterwards because you fucking knew exactly what you did like the little shitty coward you are and always have been! So you drove away, you sabotaged yourself and made up this story. I bet you didn’t even break your wipers. I bet you just turned them off halfway through a cycle. I bet you punctured your own tire. You called the police, you called an ambulance because you knew you fucked up, you knew this was your fault-“  
“That’s not true!”  
“Don’t you dare fucking interrupt me you little shit! You called the police and the ambulance because you knew you needed the help, but you knew that you’d get taken away if they realised you did it, so you just drove off first. You ran through the rain and just conveniently saw a doctor? No. No way. You drove off, then ran back to him. You meet the police and the ambulance and take him away and oh you just happen to be the hero that found him and saved the day from the problem that you caused yourself! Didn’t you? Didn’t you!?”  
“Kei, please, think rationally for a second, I know you’re upset, but-“  
“Think rationally? Why? So I can kill my brother’s best friend and try to pin it on anyone but him like you’re doing now because you thought so fucking rationally about your little plan to get away with it?”

Akiteru had had enough. He wasn’t going to be taking any more from his brother. He had been subjected to what was effectively bullying, isolation, and hatred from his brother for years prior. All this torment and disapproval that Akiteru had been so passively taking for so long beforehand couldn’t be contained any longer. It was time for his own emotional outburst.  
“Listen to me for once, Kei! Use some common fucking sense! I know you’re angry, I know you’re looking for somebody to scapegoat, I know you hate me, I know you think this is somehow my fault because for the last years of our lives you’ve been looking for ways to blame me for absolutely every bad thing that happens in your life up until and including now, because that’s just who you are, you’re somebody who doesn’t want to accept that bad things happen, that accidents happen, that things in life are capable of going your way. The world isn’t out to get you, Kei. I’m not out to get you. Do you have any idea how hard I fucking worked my ass off to try and find Yamaguchi? Do you have any idea how tired I am? How exhausted and fatigued and soaked with rain from running around the city trying to find your best friend because I care about you and because I care about your happiness? Use some god damn sense just for once in your life, Kei! How could I have known in your little made up story book world that I had hit Yamaguchi? Why would he have even been out in a fucking side-street not on the route to our house? Why is there no damage to my car other than a fucked tire? Listen to yourself! Listen to everything that’s coming out of your mouth! You’re scared, Kei. You’re scared and you don’t know how to emote it. You’re scared and you’re looking for a way to cope with it, and that’s by putting the blame on me because you fear the unknown and you can’t handle a world where something is happening to somebody you care about, and you can’t rationalise why.”  
“You’re lying.”  
“Why would I lie to you?”  
“I don’t know. Why would you lie to me? It’s not like you’ve never lied to me before or anything. “  
“Can’t you just forget about that right now? Just this once, can’t you pretend that’s as unimportant as it was? Get over it, Kei! I lied to you once, I’ve done everything I can in my life to care for you and try to make you happy. I’m sorry you don’t like it sometimes, I’m sorry you think I’m annoying, or get in your way, or am trying to make your life worse, but listen to me, for once, just once, brother to brother. I have not done this. It was truly an accident that I had nothing to do with. I know you’re scared, and I know you want to find a way out of this, but please, just calm down and focus on Yamaguchi getting better. Not a deluded story so you can scapegoat somebody and feel better about yourself because I know that you think this is your own fault, and you’re pushing it elsewhere. It’s nobody’s fault but the person we’re never going to see again in our lives, Kei. I know that scares you, you just have to accept it.”  
“I’m… I’m not scared.”  
“Yes you are! The sooner you admit it, the better. I know that Yamaguchi means more to you than anything. I know that there is absolutely nothing more in this world that you want now or could ever want in your life more than for him to be okay, for you two to go back to school together, play at nationals, but there isn’t anything you can do to help right now. I did my part to help, now the best you can offer is just to accept that this is happening, and hope that everything turns out okay. Please, Kei. Put everything in the past behind just this once. It’s what’s best for Yamaguchi and it’s what’s best for you. Okay?”  
“I’m not sure.”  
“That’s okay, Kei. This is a time of uncertainty. You’re allowed to be scared. I’m not shaming you for it. I’m just telling you that you need to embrace it. Accept that you are scared of losing Yamaguchi. Accept that you need to stop yourself from getting angry at others for something that was totally out of your control. Accept that it was nobody’s fault, and move on. You’ve just got to grind it out for everything to hopefully be okay in the end.”  
“Okay. I forgive you. I’m sorry I acted so unhesitatingly. There’s nothing I could have done.”  
“Right.”

Akiteru wrapped his arms around Tsukki, pulling him in even closer than the already completely disregarding of personal space position that they were in so that he could cuddle. He was immensely relieved that the burden of his years of guilt had flowed out, that he had helped Tsukki, and that Tsukki had admitted all of it. It was the first time he could truly show his affection to his brother in many, many years, and it was therapeutic to him.  
“Well isn’t this a rate sight.”  
Their father had returned with coffee to join Akiteru in sitting and waiting, having let Tsukki go to do his own thing earlier, knowing that there was nothing he would have been able to do or say to stop him.  
“Dad, are you alright?”  
“I think I should be asking you two the same. Akiteru, what were you thinking? Running through the dark and rain at night, leaving your car almost in the middle of the road and trashed? You could have ended up in the same state as that Yamaguchi boy. And Kei! Fighting hospital security guards. Do you want to end up in prison or something?”  
“Sorry, Dad.”  
“Also sorry, Dad.”  
“I’m just glad you’re both okay and safe. I know things are rough right now, but it’s late. I’ve booked a room for the two of you in the hospital accommodation. Your mother and I have to work tomorrow, so we’re going home. I know you’ll want to stay here. Try to sleep the stress off. I’m sure you’ll feel a lot better in the morning, okay?”  
“Okay, Dad.”  
“Here’s the room key. Call us if anything happens. Your mother is bringing you a bag with the living essentials and once she gets back, we’ll be off together. Just remember, we’re your parents. If there’s every anything whatsoever you need to talk to us about, or if you just want a shoulder to cry on right now, we’ll always be here, all right?”  
“All right.”


	16. Confessions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At what point does hope become worthless?

A faint crack of light slipping its way through the minute gap between curtains was all it took to wake Tsukki up from his somewhat uncomfortable sleep. The cheap hotel bed had left a lasting impression on his now aching neck as he slumped out of the. The room was hardly inspiring him to take a change of mood. The walls were a dim shade of white that had surely been far brighter before many decades of the decrepit building being left unattended to. A small television that wouldn’t look amiss in the late 90’s sat on a Victorian style set of drawers at the end of the bed. An out of place looking mirror hung behind the bed, with bedside tables that had the varnish scraped away sat on each side of the headboard. A small armchair was nestled in the corner, only adorned with Tsukki’s rucksack full of a chance of clothes, his toothbrush and so on that his mother had brought him. The curtains hung lower than was really necessary, to the point of inconvenience, and in many places had stains which begged the question of what people had been doing with the curtains, and the room in general before him. The carpet looked at least somewhat clean, but it that would be down to the maids vacuuming it and doing just about nothing else to the room every afternoon. His father was right though, he would feel better in the morning. He wasn’t completely better, or even a lot better, but at least he was able to exhibit basic function to some rational degree thanks to having eight hours of sleep to come to terms with the situation. At least now he wasn’t showing how destroyed he was by the thoughts of losing Yamaguchi, or at least on the outside.

He dragged himself in to the shower, as panicked as he was about Yamaguchi, he still had a life to live and an appearance to keep up. He couldn’t disregard everything in life for Yamaguchi’s sake. After all, if something tragic had happened, the hospital surely would have called him. They had asked for his phone number from his father when booking the room solely for that purpose. It contributed to his sense of relief that the worst was surely over as Yamaguchi (and he) had survived the night. He ran the water at an almost dangerously hot level. His thoughts were too busy wandering on more important matters to justify using any effort to judge his surroundings. He stood, thinking, dreading, minute upon minute passing of just letting his thoughts idle about all possible outcome until eventually he snapped back in to reality, carrying out his usual morning rituals, content to continue on with his life on a level with at least basic control over his ability to follow routine. He towelled himself off, wiping away the steam in the mirror to catch a glimpse of his exhausted looking body, bags under his eyes that struggle to keep open and a face that was as far from perky as could be imagined. He looked sleep deprived after a regular night’s rest, and yet everything felt like a chore designed purely to exploit his lethargy and make his life just that little bit harder in what was already the roughest experience he had ever had to go through. Still, he had to soldier on and drag himself from the hotel back to the hospital next door to check up on the latest developments and hope that the outlook was good in the long term.

The hospital waiting area surrounding the receptionists’ desk was significantly more crowded than it was last night. The demographics had also vastly changed from the young and able, most of whom were drunk, to a more elderly population, folks there for a check-up, for their vaccines, blood tests, assorted repeat treatments like diuretics and those with haemochromatosis. It was a regular crowd, some of which the nurses seemed to recognize. They must have been quite the characters to stick out amongst the daily races of people coming in and out of the clinic. Tsukki didn’t really care for them, he just wanted them to move faster through the queue so he could ask the receptionist if there was an update on Yamaguchi, or if he could visit, or if the worst had happened. His heart thumped in his chest as the final person ahead of him in the queue moved off to the seating area, leaving him alone, face to face with the receptionist, their presence feeling as intimidating as that of a judge as he had to press the question to them. “How is Yamaguchi Tadashi doing?”

“Let me check the system.” The clattering of keys continued for a perceived eternity as they tracked through the current patients list in their database to share whatever news that was to tell. “He is currently in a medically induced coma. He’s no longer in critical care, but they’re leaving him asleep for now to monitor his progress without any sort of stress and such on his body. That’s all that’s on the system, you’ll have to ask the doctor treating him for more details. Other than that, there’s just the room number. Are you family?”  
“Well I’m-“  
“Yeah, he’s with me. I’m the patient’s mother.” The all too familiar face of Yamaguchi’s mother had appeared behind Tsukki like a ghostly apparition. They didn’t look much better than the dead though, their face showed equal distress to Tsukki. A very faint line of dried mascara ran down the crook of her nose, evidently having been kept up crying in fear after finding out the news of her son, and with only a half-hearted attempt to clean it up afterwards. Her hair showed some semblance of being tended to, but a few unkempt patches showed through. One button on her shirt was undone, and another was buttoned in to a hole out of line with how it had been made. There was an evident rush to get in any sort of shape to be in the hospital that morning. Tsukki wondered if she had cried herself to sleep, and shown up on just a couple of hours, leaping at the first opportunity to make use of patient visiting hours. He didn’t even recall her being told what was wrong. His parents must have called Yamaguchi’s parents at some point after he had left, or while he was busy trying to break hospital procedure to visit Yamaguchi while he was being treated and in critical condition.   
“Alright, he’s in room F21 on the second floor. Please take this visitors wristband so you’re identifiable as family. Visiting is open for the next two and a half hours. I hope everything turns out okay for you.”  
“Thank you.”

A two stop trip up an elevator was all that separated Tsukki from finally being able to see Yamaguchi again. They had only been apart for less than two days in total, and yet it felt like an eternity without his best friend at this side. He wasn’t even sure if he would be able to cope with seeing Yamaguchi in such distress. He would almost certainly be lying with an oxygen mask on. That was tolerable. However, what would the rest of him look like? He must have taken an exceptionally rough beating from the assumed car that had hit him to be in such critical condition. It would have had to damage his insides, which of course would mean it did exceptional damage to the rest of him too. He recall hearing the doctor mention that his leg was broken, but that was surely just the start of it. He hadn’t caught a good view of Yamaguchi while he was trying to interfere, but it was probably for the best. Tsukki surely couldn’t have coped with seeing Yamaguchi in that state. Not after everything he had been through beforehand, especially not after the stress of the aimless waiting and confusion followed by the bombshell that Yamaguchi was in a life or death situation.

“Second floor. Doors opening.” The calm, monotone female voice ringing in the elevator speakers was the most upbeat thing he had heard all day. Even amongst the noisy hustle and bustle of the hospital reception, the atmosphere was solemn. He felt alone, even with Yamaguchi’s mother next to him going through the same emotions that he was, he felt alone. They stepped out, following the signposted arrows to each block of rooms for patients. Each door they passed drew them closer and closer, 15… 16… 17… Tsukki’s stomach began to clench in pain and his heart, barely settled down before, had started pounding yet again. 18… 19… 20… There in front of them it stood: the door for room 21. Yamaguchi was on the other side of it, hard to see at the angle they stood through the reasonably small windows on the swinging door. It was obviously a room designed to be able to transport patients in and out quickly in case of emergency while doubling up as a place of comfort and somewhere for family to visit. It put a bad taste in Tsukki’s mouth knowing that there was still terrible risks of something going wrong and having Yamaguchi be ripped away from him again, even though he had only just gotten him back. He teased the door open, Yamaguchi’s mother pushing through the other, staring in shock at the sight of the boy in front of them.

Yamaguchi was nearly unrecognizable. They both has to double take to make sure they had entered the correct room. The harsh beeping of the heart monitor rung throughout the room. As expected, he lay completely still and motionless in his induced coma, an oxygen mask adorning his face. His left leg lay in a cast as would be the norm for a broken bone. His left arm was the same. It was clear that it was his left side that was hit. There was a deep gash adorned with stitches on the other leg. The damage that had been done to his body was impossible to see thanks to the hospital gown over Yamaguchi’s body, covering everything but his arms, head, and below the knee. Given the emergency surgery that they had done the night before, his torso was probably bruised and scared, sewn back up after saving his life from whatever internal bleeding he probably suffered. With all of that, the main reason he seemed unrecognizable was because a large portion of his hair was missing, having been replaced with another line of stitches, most likely something to stop swelling in his brain from the head trauma he had heard doctors mention last night. As well as that, both of his eyes were blackened and dried, crusted blood adorned cuts across his forehead and nose. It seemed he had landed on his face after being hit. The sight of him like this immediately brought Yamaguchi’s mother to tears, crying over how she can’t believe she had let this happen, how she was a terrible mother, how it was all her fault. Tsukki wanted to try and comfort her, but he didn’t know how. He felt exactly the same, like Yamaguchi would be safe and sound if he hadn’t invited him over, if he hadn’t left him alone. He had no idea how to help her when he had no idea how to help himself.

The pair sat there for a long time, minutes rolling on to hours as they were just content to stay in Yamaguchi’s company. Doctors eventually came in at one point, telling them the full extent of what had happened. There was what they already knew, a broken arm, a broken leg, also a broken nose and the many cuts and bruises over his boy. As well as that, what they had already anticipated, swelling in his brain and internal bleeding in his lungs had both been attended to and would hopefully not be an issue in the long run. They told them that the biggest threat to him would be an infection while his immune system was weakened, but the outlook was generally positive while they watched over him in his coma to make sure recovery was going fine before waking him up. He would still be in hospital for a couple of weeks, and eventually be able to leave, likely in a wheelchair as he wouldn’t be able to walk with crutches on a broken arm. If all went well, he would be fit and ready to go again in three months, just in time for Nationals if they were to qualify for them, but he would be sitting out the regional finals along with Sugawara who sat downstairs in the less urgent patient rooms, but equally as worried about Yamaguchi’s wellbeing. Tsukki had to remember to try and get Sugawara to visit Yamaguchi before he was discharged later in the day, or the next morning.

“It’s getting close to lunch. We’re both exhausted. I’m going to get a coffee, I need it right now. Do you want one?”  
“Yes please.”  
“How do you take it?”  
“White, three sugars.”  
“Alright, back in five.”  
On cue, Tsukki got up and walked towards the bed, resting his arms on the guard rails that were there to protect patients from whatever sort of rolling off the bed accidents they could get in to. He leaned forward, misty eyed having to look at Yamaguchi like this, and began talking to him. He knew he couldn’t hear him. He knew he wouldn’t get a response. He knew that he was speaking to what was effectively a brick wall, but it didn’t faze him.  
“Hey, Tadashi. How are you doing? Well, not great, I don’t need to ask that. Maybe you can hear me, maybe you can’t. I hope you can though. I know that you’re only in this situation because of my bad scheduling. I hope you’ll forgive me when you wake up. You’ve got a lot to look forward to when you’re all better. We’ll be able to go back to our sleepovers. The team might make it to nationals and you’ll be able to hit your jump float serves in front of thousands of people all cheering for us, the underdogs, people cheering for you, people who want you to succeed. Think of all the people who aren’t gonna be able to root for the awesome server from Karasuno if you don’t get through that. You can’t disappoint them, right? You’ll get better and there’ll be scouts, we could go to a big university together. You can’t deny them the pleasure of seeing you play too. And the team, the team needs you to win. You can’t disappoint them either. They need you. And me, I need you too, Tadashi.” Tsukki began to let the tears flow freely down his cheeks. He choked his words as he tried to keep himself stable enough to be able to release his monologue to Yamaguchi, again, not knowing if he would ever hear any of it. “I need you more than anyone else. Remember the whole ‘everyone needs somebody to tell them it’ll all be okay’ thing? Well, let me say it to you now. Everything will be okay. You’re going to get better and we’re going to be playing volleyball together at nationals. Honestly, sometimes I wonder if I care about you too much. You’re my best friend, and yet we’re like family. Or maybe not, I don’t know. No. I’m right to care this much. I do care about you. I care about you more than anyone else. I… Tadashi, I love you. I said it, I said it and I want you to know it. I love you, Tadashi.”

A huge weight had been lifted off of Tsukki’s shoulders. He savoured the moment, leaning over Yamaguchi’s bed, doing everything he can to stop himself from grabbing him in his embrace knowing that he had finally been able to tell him what he truly felt. Tears had never stopped flowing, although Tsukki’s face had broken out in to a smile of relief before being dragged back down to earth. The heart monitor continued to alternate its beeping and its silence. Beep, then silence. Beep, and silence was no more.


	17. Perseverance

“Tadashi? Tadashi!?” Tsukki had been thrown in to a world of panic as the worst case scenario began to unfold in front of him. Just as he had thought it would all be okay, just after he had been told by the doctors that things were improving, that they’d be able to leave together and everything would be okay, Yamaguchi lay motionless below him, the heart monitor having flat lined. He looked for the emergency call button, he shouted for help, he had to do everything that he could conceivably think of to try and get medical staff to show up as efficiently as possible. Eventually they all began to pour in, the room becoming crowded with Tsukki being practically shoved out of the way so that Yamaguchi could be tended to. Tsukki couldn’t tell if it was just normal procedure, or if something was so urgently wrong that they wouldn’t have time to take Yamaguchi out of the room and move him to somewhere else to be treated, but they were doing everything in his own room. Yet again, Yamaguchi had effectively been ripped away from him. He couldn’t get a single look in amongst the wall of medical scrubs in front of him. The entire experience managed to be surreal, despite having experienced it only the day before, although surely nothing could ever prepare Tsukki for seeing his best friend, the boy he had confessed his love to only moments ago, at risk of being ripped away from him forever.

“My baby! What happened? Somebody tell me what happened!” The sound of two coffee cups hitting the floor were muted by the sounds inside of Yamaguchi’s room, and they were only overridden by a loud, shrill scream as Yamaguchi’s mother having darted inside to try and see what state her son was in. She didn’t need to be told that his heart had stopped as she could very clearly see what was going on. Much like Tsukki’s outburst one day prior, she charged towards the bed, only to be dragged away by doctors trying to tell her that they can’t help with her in the way and that it’s for the best if she backed off, but of course, she also didn’t listen. She was too grief stricken. Tsukki had to continue his recent trend of alternating between helping and needing to be helped as he knew that at this point, he was just about the only person that she may listen to. There was no fairy tale ending where Yamaguchi, having been told that Tsukki loved him, would wake up. Instead, Tsukki was forced to go from his brief moment of intimacy, a feeling that he so very rarely demonstrated, to being thrown in to the thick of yet another life or death situation involving the most important aspect of his life, Yamaguchi.

“Tsukishima! Tell them I’m his mother! Let them know I have to be here!”  
“Please. Please calm down.”  
“Calm down!? How can I calm down when my son’s life is at risk in front of me and they won’t even let me past?”  
“Just listen! I know how you feel. I know exactly how you feel. I’m feeling it right now and trying my damned hardest to control myself. I went through this yesterday before you even knew what had happened. The exact same situation. And you know what they told me? They told me the exact same thing. They told me everything you were just told, and you know what happened? Tadashi survived the night. I know you’re scared, I know I’m scared, everyone is scared, we’ve all been giving each other the same talks all day about how we’re fucking terrified of losing Tadashi. Now it’s your turn. You need to realise that the doctors are going to help. Please, take it from me, take it from the boy who has already been through this before less than a day ago, it’ll all be for the best if you just let them do their job. Believe me, I know it’s hard to think rationally right now. I didn’t want to believe people when they told me the exact same story. Come with me, out of the way, just sit down on the chairs on the other side of the room and know that they’re trying to help. If you need to be here, stay here, just from a distance. Okay?”  
“I… I trust you.”  
“Good, good. We just have to wait, okay? Sit and wait. Sit, wait and hope that it’ll all be okay, that we can leave here and know that Tadashi will be fine.”

Waiting for things to be fine was to wait to reap the rewards of blind hope. Every second felt like an eternity, minutes past having felt like hours. The doctor’s hands performing each chest compression over and over for minute after minute was mesmerising. Every moment there was a desperate need for the doctors to stop, to say that everything was alright, but it didn’t. The hope that they had been relying so heavily on for such a long period of time was fleeting, their dreams of everyone going home happy were waning. Yamaguchi was showing no signs of getting better. His mother and Tsukki were trying to do everything they possibly could to avoid becoming resigned to defeat, and yet it seemed like that was going to be the only option. Tsukki looked at his watch. It had been about forty minutes of just watching and waiting and hoping. He listened to the weak murmurs from the doctors as they all began to look around nervously.  
“Do we call it?”  
“No.”  
“Doctor, we’ve been at it for nearly three quarters of an hour. That’s longer than standard procedure. He’s showing no signs of improvement.”  
“Five more minutes. He’s just a kid, the family are in the same room for god’s sake. Keep trying until it’s certain”  
“After this long his brain will be oxygen starved, there’s a real risk of unrecoverable damage even if he does make it through this.”  
“Five minutes.”  
“If you say so.”

As quietly as they tried to speak to avoid being heard, Tsukki could hear a pin drop in the room. The doctors had primarily given up hope. There seemed to be next to nobody with any real belief that things were going to turn around.  
Beep  
An intrusive noise pierced the room. The world seemed to stop around them. The tension that had been built up amongst everyone had been dispersed.  
Beep  
“Oh thank god”  
Beep  
“Good work, Doctor. I’ll not question you next time.”  
“It’s fine. Most people would have called it. I don’t blame you. You two over there, mother and brother, I take it?”  
“Mother and boy- best friend.”  
“Well, we’ve got a pulse back. We obviously can’t guarantee that it’s all clear from this point out, but we’re going to take him back upstairs to critical care, do some examinations and hope the worst is over. We’ll try to find out what caused it. Unfortunately, there’s no visiting, so we’ll have to ask you to go back to the waiting area. We’ll let you know if anything happens.” The doctor glanced towards Tsukki. “And no phones in the hospital, take it outside.” Tsukki had been too preoccupied by the drama unfolding around him to have noticed his phone buzzing away in his pocket. He pulled it out, checking who it was before rejecting the call and heading outside to see what the matter was. It was Sugawara.

“So, Tsukishima, where are you planning on going?”  
“Well I guess I’ll see what this phone call is about. I have a room in the hotel next door with my brother. He’s probably going to be out all day getting his car fixed and probably trying to deal with police who want to know why he left a car in the middle of the road for nearly 24 hours.”  
“Why’s that?”  
“Long story. He’s the one who found Tadashi. He totalled his car trying to find him.”  
“I need to thank him personally. Send me his way while you’re going to do whatever it is you’re doing.”  
“I’ll give you his number. I don’t know when he’ll be around.”  
“Okay.”

Tsukki plodded down the hospital stairwell, exhausted mentally from the constant taunting from death itself. Downstairs, everything was a little more vibrant and lively with patients and nurses moving around for a more active atmosphere to the reasonably peaceful and empty area upstairs. He wondered where all the doctors and nurses had so quickly flooded in to Yamaguchi’s room from. He grabbed his phone from his pocket, immediately being scolded by a nurse who walked past him, to which he responded that he was just turning it off, when in reality he was just wandering outside to call Sugawara back. The sun outside was blinding compared to the relatively dim interior lighting. Considering it had been raining for so many days in a row prior, it felt like a heat wave had spread throughout the town as the direct sunlight warmed the city to what was surely its hottest day in weeks. Tsukki found a spot out of the way of the ambulances and human traffic going in and out of the hospital to sit himself down against and enquire as to what Sugawara wanted. The phone rang for a little longer than he would expect given Sugawara had only called him a few minutes ago. It would be odd for him to suddenly be busy if he was expecting to have the time to talk to Tsukki. If he wasn’t texting him, it must have been something he would want to talk about. Eventually, the familiar, perky voice came out of the phone speakers.

“Hello?”  
“Suga, you called?”  
“Oh, Tsukki! Yeah, I was just wondering how things are with Yamaguchi. Daichi and I were just going out on a walk and we thought we’d drop in to visit before I’m fully discharged later today. Can we?”  
“Uh, no, no you can’t Suga…”  
“You sound serious. Did something bag happen? Tsukki…”  
“Well, yeah, I just mean not right now, uh, he got worse overnight and he’s back in critical care. His heart stopped for 45 minutes. I think I heard them saying the damage could be permanent. They don’t know yet.”  
“Oh no, oh that’s terrible. Tsukki we’re coming over to talk. Where are you?”  
“I’m just outside the main entrance. They won’t let us use phones in the hospital.”  
“Oh yeah, that’ll be why you missed the call… Anyway, we’ll be right over!” Tsukki heard Daichi in the background shouting at Sugawara to not try and rush himself while his ankle was not even close to just beginning to heal before the call was hung up.

The fifteen minute wait for the couple to arrive felt like a fraction of a second compared to the hour he had spent in Yamaguchi’s room. Daichi and Sugawara did arrive relatively quickly, although it would understandably take a while for Sugawara to hobble back while still relatively unused to his crutches. He looked exceptionally spritely for somebody who had spent the best part of two days lying in a bed completely sedentary, eating hospital food and junk snacks that Daichi had brought to him, and had had surgery. Regardless, he still had a great look of concern spread across his face as he awaited to hear the full details on Yamaguchi’s situation, even if Tsukki had already explained effectively all of it.  
“So, how is he?”  
“As bad as I said he was fifteen minutes ago.”  
“Mm. Did they give any sort of timeframe for when he’s going to get better?”  
“Nothing. They just said hope for the best. Who knows what could happen. Surely he can’t get any worse without dying.”  
“Don’t jinx it!” Sugawara forced a smile as he tried to make their encounter a little more light-hearted to try and raise spirits. It didn’t particularly work. Tsukki still looked grim with fatigue and fear. “Anyway, what happened? He just suddenly got worse?”  
“Well, I was with his mother and we were in his room. She went out to get coffee, I started talking to him and he just suddenly went.”  
“What did you say? Maybe he didn’t like it!”  
“Suga!” Daichi leaned forward and started whispering in to Sugawara’s ear. “Don’t say that to him, what if it was something important? You could make him feel bad, lord knows he doesn’t need to think that it’s his fault at this point. Watch what you say. You’re supposed to be good at dealing with people.”  
“I said I loved him.”

Daichi and Sugawara both stood looking flabbergasted at the bombshell that Tsukki had just dropped on them. Daichi was right, Sugawara really should not have implied there was a chance Yamaguchi got worse thanks to Tsukki’s worse, even if it was a ridiculous notion to try and entertain. Their conversation paused for a moment as neither boy knew how to respond to what Tsukki had told them. Trying to avoid an awkward silence, Sugawara blurted out anything to break it.  
“Well, congratulations for if, uh, when! When he gets better.”  
“Well he hasn’t said he loves me back yet.”  
“I’m sure he will.”  
“What make you say that? Did he say something to you? You can’t know.”  
“Remember when we accidentally took you on a double date? Well, I guess it wasn’t really accidental now anyway. But yeah, remember that? Yamaguchi even said he could see you two as a couple. I think that’s pretty obvious.”  
“We were just really close friends. People are stupid like that.”  
“Just think back, I’m sure that there’s some hints that he’d like you back. You two are as close as any pair I’ve ever met, probably as close as me and Daichi are. I’d be willing to be that he’ll be jumping with joy when he wakes up and the first thing he sees is you smiling in front of him.”  
“You think so?”  
“I know so. People as close as you are won’t feel a deep enough spiritual connection to say that you love them if it’s only a one sided thing. There’s no way he won’t reciprocate.”  
“If you say so. So, uh, what do couples, like, actually do?”

The tension of the situation had been completely wiped away as Tsukki’s cause for concern suddenly became relationship advice from the only couple he knew. Sugawara could go back in to his natural element of helping cheer people up, or give them sound advice, and generally keep people in better spirits now that Tsukki had taken the less serious route with their conversation. It was a cheery change of pace from the hectic morning. If anything, it was at least a distraction for Tsukki before the next major development in Yamaguchi’s recovery.


	18. Hope

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Patience is a virtue

“We’ll be taking him off of his induced coma tomorrow morning. His condition is stable, but we can’t guarantee that he’ll immediately awake from said coma, nor that there’ll be no change in his personality, motor functions and so on. That’ll happen when your brain spends 40 minutes oxygen starved after already taking massive head trauma. Still, we can’t find out if we leave him under forever, and at this moment he can survive without it. Again, we don’t know when he’ll wake up, so don’t be in any sort of rush to be here as soon as visiting hours are open. As much as we’d love everyone to have their fairy tale moment where the person they care for wakes up in their presence, hospitals aren’t scripted dramas. If you have any other questions, feel free to ask them now. Visiting hours are nearly over, so you should probably try to find out now.”  
“I’ve got nothing.”  
“Alright. Well, I’m sure I’ll see you around at some point soon. Here’s to hoping that your… brother was it?”  
“Best friend. I'm his best friend. His mother is around too. She'll be back soon.”  
“Best friend, right, that everything turns out for the best in the long run, but I have to stress that there is likely going to be some lasting damage, so don’t get your hopes too elevated. We’ll see how the brain scans come back first.”  
“I’ll try not to, but like you said, let’s hope.”  
“Exactly.”

* * *

The increasingly more obnoxious sounds of an alarm clock dragged Tsukki out of his dreams for another day of school. It was Friday morning. A week had passed since Yamaguchi’s accident. He hadn’t been able to visit much due to volleyball practice and school, so he had to settle with a live-text feed from Yamaguchi’s mother who had hardly left his side in the last seven days, taking time off work to be with her son. His immediate reaction once snapping back in to the world of being awake was to check his phone to see the latest details. As expected, Yamaguchi had been taken out of his induced coma, and similarly, as expected, he had not immediately woken up. During the entire school day he was constantly flicking his eyes towards his phone, barely peeking out of his pocket in class, or constantly on the desk during breaks. The updates were slow, but they did show at least some sort of progress. “Tadashi moved a finger!” was the first thing he saw. It was a good start, at least he wasn’t braindead. “He moved his ankle!” came next. By the time school had ended for the day, that was all the information that had trickled its way through to him. He headed off to the hospital as he had multiple times beforehand so he could be one of the first to see Yamaguchi’s condition improving at its slow and steady rate. 

The usual hospital procedure followed before he was carted off in to Yamaguchi’s room. His mother was sitting on the chairs opposite as expected, sipping from a half empty cup of coffee and looking in a significantly better state than she had been a week ago. It was understandable, there didn’t seem to be much of a chance of Yamaguchi suddenly dying like there had been only a week ago. Tsukki himself was in a far better state. Harmony had been restored with him and the team and he had gotten back on track with classes. As he strolled in to the room, he unzipped his bag, pulling out two large ‘get well soon’ cards. The first was signed by all of his classmates, the other signed by the volleyball team. He placed them on the table next to his bed so that Yamaguchi would have some positive reinforcement when he did wake up from his classmates.

“Has anything new happened since you last messaged me?”  
“No, but he hasn’t gotten worse, so I’ll take staying the same for now.”  
“It’s a start.”  
“Yeah. The doctors said that the scans came back pretty positive. I guess that means he should be okay? They didn’t really make things clear. I’m thinking that means he’s going to just go back to being my little Tadashi, safe and sound and healthy.”  
“You’d hope.”

And for the rest of that Friday, nothing happened.

* * *

Each day after that, Yamaguchi became less and less of an overbearing priority for Tsukki. It wasn’t out of not caring or distancing himself, it was purely out of the growing knowledge that there was nothing major happening. No emergencies, no sudden massive positives. He didn’t need to visit frequently, instead settling to visit again on Friday, as unless he suddenly got the call saying that Yamaguchi had woken up, there wasn’t much else that could happen to merit the effort of going to the hospital. Of course Tsukki cared immeasurably deeply for Yamaguchi, but even still there was only so much forcing himself to go out of his way to see him in the exact same state he could do. The days trickled on and on, Tsukki’s major happenings feeling somewhat irrelevant without Yamaguchi at his side to share them with. They had sat exams that Yamaguchi had ended up missing. The volleyball team had played their regional games with Yamaguchi and Sugawara on the side-lines, promptly joined by Hinata after throwing his shoulder getting a little bit too in to a spike on the final set. At the rate things were going, they were lucky to have accomplished anything with so many players absent. The generic mentality of playing for the players who couldn’t be there shown through. The week had flown by despite it being so hectic, a trend that didn’t seem to stop after the constant business, fear, panic, arguing and so on that had filled up the last two weeks beforehand. Thursday evening had been greeted with an emergency call as Tsukki had collapsed in to his bed asleep at 9 in exhaustion. The ‘emergency call’ in the end being a notice that Yamaguchi had made some weak murmuring noises to go with his very slight movements in his extremities. That was supposed to be a sign of things getting better, so it was enough to put Tsukki soundly asleep before he had one more day of school to sit through prior to visiting Yamaguchi again.

* * *

“Well if he wakes up soon, he’ll probably be out of here within a week. His arm and leg will be about halfway to healed, it’d have been 3 weeks already. He doesn’t look as black, blue and beaten up as before because all of his cuts and bruises have pretty much healed.” His mother was very vocal in her optimism of getting everyone home and away from the rather tiresome scenery of the hospital.  
“That would be nice.”  
“Actually…” The doctor who had overheard their conversation had to interject. “It’s a little less simple than that. The superficial damage will have healed, but given the circumstances he was put under, he would have to undergo a full psychiatric assessment, enter rehabilitation due to the nasty break in his leg needing a little more than just 6 weeks in a cast to walk off, time spent with the police to try and catch the person who caused the accident, possibly more unforeseen circumstances. We can’t be too sure yet. We don’t know how long he’ll be comatose for anyway. It’s best to not speculate with these things.”  
“But he’s showing a lot of improvements isn’t he? He’s moving around a little.”  
“That’s not really a clear indicator of anything. I don’t want to bring up worst case scenarios, but there are people who are quadriplegic who can move their fingers and toes and nothing else. Fortunately, that is, I’m sure, not what is the matter with your son, but there’s just no medical reason I can give to estimate when he’ll wake up again. It’s best to not speculate, as I said.”  
“If you say so.”

Tsukki was more than happy to spend the evening there until his parents picked him up late at night. Even Yamaguchi’s mother had gone back to her hotel room to try and regain some semblance of a sleeping pattern amongst the stressful weeks she had been going through. The room was dimly lit by lamps rather than the main light, as at that time of day other patients would be trying to sleep. The drilling noise of the heart monitor beeped rhythmically. It drifted from an annoying distraction from Tsukki’s thoughts to an afterthought as Tsukki had not much else in the room to focus on, until he heard a faint mumbling sound coming from the bed. Tsukki shot up, making sure to see that there was nothing wrong with Yamaguchi, but also hoping he had woken up. He stared at him intensely for a minute or two, nerves draining his face of any expression, until eventually, he saw Yamaguchi’s olive eyes opening for the first time in weeks.

“Kei?” Yamaguchi’s face turned from confusion to smiling.  
“Oh thank god you’re okay.” Tsukki instinctively wrapped his arms around Yamaguchi’s neck, pulling him in to his chest in a warm embrace, all of his built up emotions finally having a route to escape. He barely avoided having his tears stream down his face, although he couldn’t stop himself from being misty eyes. It never crossed his mind to call one of the doctors, or Yamaguchi’s mother. He solely wanted this moment for himself to enjoy.  
“Kei did I ever tell you you look like french fries? Mm.” Yamaguchi, despite being taken off an induced coma a week ago, was still ridiculously doped up on medication that was clearly affecting him.  
“No, but you’re right. Maybe I do.”  
“I’m hungry. Can I eat you mister french fry.” Tsukki could only laugh and smile that Yamaguchi was at least talking to him, and talking to him (somewhat) coherently. “I feel sleepy.”  
“Sleepy? But you just woke up. You’ve been asleep for weeks. Don’t be so lazy”  
“Noooo I’m not lazy! Just… tired.”  
“Of course you’re tired. Don’t you have any idea what you went through?”  
“I’m at your house.” Tsukki laughed. Yamaguchi was well and truly completely out of it.  
“No silly, I’m visiting you.”  
“Oh, nice.”  
“But if you’re all sleepy, I’ll leave you here. I’ll come visit again when I can, okay, Tadashi?”  
“Bye bye… bye bye bye, bye bye bye bye~” Yamaguchi had begun melodically repeating goodbye to Tsukki, much to his amusement.  
“Goodnight… Love you” Tsukki took his opportunity and kissed Yamaguchi on the forehead, smiling immensely to himself and blushing fiercely as he left the room to tell the doctor. “Love you too, Mom,” he heard faintly as he exited the room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FINALLY


	19. Relaxation

For what felt like the first time ever, each morning the noises blurted out by the alarm clock that lay on Tsukki’s bedside table felt like a sweet serenade of a chorus or cherubs. Each new day signalled by the high pitched beeping tones was one day closer to Tsukki being able to go and visit Yamaguchi again. Now that he had woken up and was seemingly perfectly fine, no lasting damage and able to actually interact with people, Tsukki grew increasingly desperate with excitement as it grew closer and closer to Friday. While he didn’t particularly want it to be this way, such a tragedy had made Tsukki realise just how much of his life relied on having Yamaguchi around. His lunchtimes had become exceedingly bland as he sat alone and listening to music as he tiresomely waited for class to resume again, something he never typically would wish for. His free periods were spent much the same without Yamaguchi at his side to do homework with, or study, or catch up on things they didn’t quite understand. Practice was a little less fun without the ever-motivational Yamaguchi at his side shouting “Nice!” at just about anything he had achieved. Tsukki would find himself going to bed earlier and earlier every night without Yamaguchi to text or Skype in the evenings once he had run out of things to do, and had no real excuse to stay up for so many hours. In response, he was waking up later with no need to arrive early for class to greet Yamaguchi at their lockers, as he could just pack his books for the next day in the evening and show up just before the morning bell. 

Each of the days classes were spent excited and jittery, looking at the clock, waiting for it to end so he could hurry on further to Friday. “A forty minute class is two twenties, two twenties is four tens, eight five minute spells, only fifteen minutes left. I’ve already sat through twenty five. That’s just three more five minutes and the class is over…” Practice was not much different. Tsukki was giving everything he could solely because it was a distraction that would make the day go by quicker. When he got home, he would force himself through all of his homework and the moment even the weakest yawn came from his mouth, he would throw himself in to bed and scramble around in his bed for minutes to hours trying to get to sleep, fighting against the excitement that was keeping him up. He didn’t take a single moment to realise his hyperactive excitement was showing how absurdly great his love for Yamaguchi was, that his entire week had become focused around having another opportunity to see Yamaguchi. He saw it as if it was both pathetic and yet adorable, and he loved every second of it.

Just as he had done the week before, the moment the school bell rang he was dashing out of class and on his way to the hospital to visit Yamaguchi, this time knowing full well that he wasn’t going to be living off the faint hop that he might wake up. This time it was going knowing that he was going to see his best friend, the person he wanted to be his boyfriend, wide awake and fully aware of what was going on around him. It was thrilling just to think about. He felt absolutely no sense of exhaustion as he jogged his way to the hospital, his sheer glee keeping him going for far longer than he can ever remember himself running anywhere. With the route becoming more and more familiar, he could remember just exactly how close he was to the hospital every time he thought about it, and his excitement grew and grew as he began realising just how close he was to getting there, until eventually he turned around a corner and came to the front entrance. Hardly stopping to catch his breath, his boundless energy sustaining him, he ran up to the front desk, eager to get to Yamaguchi’s room as soon as possible. Once he had the permission to go up, he charged his way up the stairs, not wanting to wait for the elevator to be called, eventually arriving on the second floor and walking his way down the corridor until he eventually saw the door that he had grown accustomed to seeing Yamaguchi just beyond.

“Tsukki!” All of the build-up and eagerness that Tsukki had been building up all week had immediately become worth it as he entered Yamaguchi’s room and saw the huge, beaming smile spread across his face from the moment he saw that his best friend had come to visit him.  
“Hey there. How’s it going?”  
“Tsukki. I am. So. Bored. There’s nothing to do around this place! Especially when I’m stuck in bed all day. They don’t let me walk around and even if I was able to there’s not a single freaking thing to do here. What am I supposed to do to kill time other than sleep, sit in bed being bored and eat crappy hospital food that tastes like paper? I want french fries. I want video games. I want anything that isn’t this damn room.”  
“Well somebody’s awfully more talkative than the last time I saw them.”  
“Ah, sorry Tsukki! I’ll let you speak.”  
“I didn’t say that. I’m happy to let you complain all about the hospital to your hearts content. Considering you nearly died on me twice, I figure it’d be unfair to not appreciate spending more time with you and letting you do whatever you want.”  
“That’s awfully sentimental of you, Tsukki. What happened?”  
“You nearly fucking died you idiot. That’s what happened. Did you get hit so hard you forgot why you’re here in the first place? Have you just been sitting here alone wondering how the hell you got here and confused and scared as to why there’s so many doctors and policemen quizzing you day in and day out?”  
“Point taken. Sheesh.” The pair broke out in to fits of giggling. At least Yamaguchi could find the bright side in the situation and poke fun at his own expense. For all the tension that had been in Tsukki’s life with Yamaguchi twice narrowly escaping deaths grip, it was a cryptic change in mood for them to be laughing about it as if it was something unserious and hilarious that just happened to happen in their lives. Still, Tsukki couldn’t care less. Not now that Yamaguchi was okay and seemingly as fit as a fiddle, hopefully able to leave at the hospital’s earliest convenience.

“So, has much happened while I’ve been stuck here?”  
“Well, there’s an absurd amount of work and assignments that you’ve missed out on that, while I’m sure are important, the teacher will let you skip out on seeing as you nearly fucking died and he has to have a least a little bit of heart, right?”  
“Right. But I’d kind of like to not end up stupid because I missed a bunch of classes in the hospital. But I don’t want to work either… Why didn’t they give me the work to do while I was stuck here bored with nothing to do? Classwork is a step up from doing god damn nothing in a hospital bed. And it’s uncomfortable too. And lock! They didn’t even give me clothes. I’m stuck in this lame hospital gown!”  
“Well I can get it for you to do up until they discharge you…”  
“That works! And, oh yeah, weren’t the games for qualifying for nationals supposed to be happening around now? I… don’t actually know what day it is. I kind of lost track.”  
“It’s Friday. I told you it’d be Friday I came. Were you not as excited as I was?”  
“Oh I was! I was really excited. And aww, you were excited, but there’s only a clock and not calendar in here and after 6 or 7 days of doing the same nothing you kind of lose track. Anyway, get off this tangent. Nationals qualifying. How did it go?”  
“We came, we saw, we kicked their ass.”  
“What kind of nerd quotes Ghostbusters when talking about volleyball?”  
“Can’t you just be excited? We won. We made nationals. If you get better quickly, you might even get to play. Suga and Hinata both missed out too, but-“  
“Hinata got hurt!? And we still won? Tanaka-senpai is better than I thought he was.”  
“Actually, he just hurt himself in the final set of the final. He tried to spike a little too enthusiastically and fucked up his shoulder or something. He’s acting like he’s back in high school, just practicing by jumping up and down the place because he can’t spike. He looks restless. For once, I’m kind of worried for him.”  
“He’ll be better in time for nationals though, right? We need him to win.”  
“Well we won without him, but yeah, he should be fine. He was able to join us for pizza in celebration after the qualifiers were done, so it couldn’t have been too critical for him. He has a sling now, but he’s probably fine. He didn’t go to the hospital so he can’t be that messed up.”  
“Mm, pizza. I kind of want some pizza right now. The hospital food sucks.”  
“We could just order some pizza. I know you’re not allowed cell phones in here but I could just go outside, have it brought to me and take it up to the room. There’s nothing against that. I’ve heard about people doing it online. We can totally get some pizza if you want. I have money on me. We can make this happen if you’re legitimately serious about wanting some pizza right now.”  
“Tsukki, I think I may love you right now. Yes, yes I need pizza. I need it so badly.” It was at that moment that Tsukki had realised that he had confessed his love to Yamaguchi while he was under. Yamaguchi had no idea that he had confessed. Tsukki had been treating their interactions like they were a couple, and Yamaguchi was none the wiser, just thinking that he was excited to be seeing him. He couldn’t even begin to imagine how he could say it again to Yamaguchi’s wide awake face without turning in to a stuttering, blushing mess. Could he put it off? Could he just hope that Yamaguchi liked him back and would confess at some point? Maybe Yamaguchi wasn’t interested and the entire thing would be awkward. It would be best not to completely dampen the mood by being rejected, but then, he really, really enjoyed the excitement and passion he felt towards seeing Yamaguchi fit and healthy. He knew he really had a deep, emotional connection with Yamaguchi and he didn’t want to ever let that go, and yet confessing may end up jeopardising that. No, he had to say it, in that split second after Yamaguchi had jokingly said he loved Tsukki for getting him pizza, he had to take the opportunity to confess again. After all, if he said it now, Yamaguchi wouldn’t be expecting it, he wouldn’t be built up for rejection, he would ask if it was a joke. Yamaguchi could say he loved Tsukki too and it’d all be fine after Tsukki says it wasn’t joking, or Tsukki could say that he was joking when Yamaguchi rejects him. It was a win-win opportunity for Tsukki that could at least put him down lightly if Yamaguchi didn’t feel the same way back.

“I love you too.”  
“W-what?”  
“I love you too, Tadashi.”  
“Is this a joke?” Things were going exactly as Tsukki was expecting.  
“What do you think?”  
“I think I love you too.”  
“Are you joking back?”  
“Were you joking in the first place?”  
“No.”  
“Me neither.”  
“Wait… so?”  
“Ah, Yeah…” Neither Tsukki nor Yamaguchi could look the other in the eye. Both were red faced, neither of them had any idea how to react to the pair telling each other that they liked one another. It was one hell of an awkward way to say it, but they had got it out, and both of them had felt an immense weight lifted from their shoulders once they had done so. The awkward silence and murmuring was eventually broken by Yamaguchi raising his soft, squeaky with joy voice. “So, Tsukki. Uh, Kei? Pizza, you want to go outside and order it?”  
“Yeah, yeah I’m gonna, um, go and do that now.” Tsukki quickly paced out of the room, slinking back in moments later like a tom cat licking his wounds. “Uh, what kind of pizza do you want?”  
“Just pepperoni is good.”  
“Okay, uh, I’ll be back in twenty minutes.”

Tsukki instinctively dragged his hands to his face as he walked around the corridor, moving back towards the elevator to take himself outside. He couldn’t comprehend his own happiness, only seeing sheer embarrassment even though Yamaguchi had agreed with his confession, and that, while it hadn’t been officially spoken, they were an item. He had no idea how he could ever face Yamaguchi again. He would just have to take the pizza up to him and play it off as if they had said absolutely nothing. Showing affection was hard, especially when you had no idea how to do it without drowning yourself in the embarrassment of being in a relationship, even if they had been friends for so, so long and had seen and done enough together to be perceived as boyfriends by a large portion of the school anyway. As he got out of the hospital, pulling out his phone to make their order, Tsukki struggled to regain his ability to even talk normally, but he managed to force his way through a simple phone call, and then the inevitable twenty minute wait to pick it up as it arrived and take it back upstairs for he and Yamaguchi to enjoy. He didn’t even realise the implications of himself buying the biggest pizza they had in what Yamaguchi wanted instead of ordering two separate ones with what he and Yamaguchi wanted separately. He had unwittingly already began to adapt to life as a couple. He hated it, and he loved it.

“Pizza time”  
“Hell yeah! Gimmie. Gimmie gimmie gimmie.”  
“Calm down, Tadashi.”  
“Huh? Oh, right, Tadashi! Gotta get used to that. Anyway, yeah, I’m so goddamn hungry though. I need this pizza. Put it on the bed and open it up. Ah, I can smell it already. Hurry up, Tsuk…kei.” The pair dived in to their pizza, chatting about whatever came to mind as they enjoyed what was their first quality time spent together as a couple, maybe even to be considered their first date. It was awkward and neither of them had the slightest care in the world about it at this point. They were just happy to be in each other’s company. Tsukki did still have some questions left over as remnants of his thoughts from the start of Yamaguchi’s accident. He may as well have used the opportunity to ask the questions that came to mind, even if they may have been a little uncomfortable for him to answer.

“So… what actually happened to you?”  
“Huh?”  
“What actually caused your accident? I was terrified when you didn’t show up at all to my house, you were hours late, I have no idea how long you were on the ground dying for, I have no idea how you even got there, they said they found you in a back alley? What were you doing in a back alley? I have so many question about what the hell happened... It wasn’t Akiteru was it?”  
“What? Of course not. Look, let me just say it all once so I can try to forget about it. I was walking to your place, I went to get something to eat on the way back. I went to text you to tell you I’d be a little late and was going to make up some excuse because I didn’t want to say that food was at that time more important than arriving on time. So here I am, just walking back from the food joint on this back alley, and this asshole speeds round the corner while I’m crossing the road, nails me and drives off as if nothing happened. But that’s not the last of it, See, I didn’t get knocked out straight away. I was still able to feel everything, and holy shit it hurt like a bitch. I can’t even begin to describe it, but here I am lying on the floor, practically trying to drag myself in to the view of somewhere a little more public, and in the process, I end up passing out between streets so that I was out of the way. I kind of fucked myself up because of that. You would have thought that somebody would have noticed the god damn trail of blood leading from the side of the road to an alley and done something, but apparently luck just wasn’t on my side that day. Go figure. Anyway, you can tell me whatever else happened because, heyo, I wake up two weeks later in a hospital surrounded by people who tell me I’m lucky to be alive and breathing and not a vegetable.”  
“Oh… oh, you’re serious? You don’t know what happened with you in the hospital?”  
“Nope. Nobody’s actually told me yet.”  
“Fucking hell. That’s rude of them. Your heart gave out, then they got it working again. Then it gave out a second time, this time for longer than is supposed to kill people or leave people braindead, and then it started working again. Also they shaved some of your hair so they could cut your skull open or something but you probably noticed that.”  
“They… they cut my?” A faint scream left Yamaguchi’s lips as he felt around the back of his head and noticed that after three weeks of growing back, he didn’t notice that there was a patch of hair significantly shorter than the rest. “Oh god, I must look terrible. As soon as I get out of here, I need to get some sort of haircut to fix this.”  
“Better alive and unfashionable than dead and stylish.”  
“Yeah, yeah, I get it. I’m lucky to be alive and all. I should at least only have to put up with looking like an idiot for like, one more week? I think they said I can go next Friday.”  
“Oh. We have Friday off school next week because they need to use the school for voting in some election or bill or something I don’t really care about. We can go do something when you’re out.”  
“Like get a haircut.”  
“Like getting a haircut. Yeah.”  
“You should get one too. I think it’s about time you did something snazzy.”  
“I’ll pass, thanks.”  
“Come on, I bet you’d look great if you got an undercut.”  
“You think?”  
“Maybe. Couldn’t hurt to try. Looks like you’ve grown it too much anyway so even if it looks like crap you can still just even it out and look not like crap.”  
“I’m glad you rate my style as ‘looking less crap’”  
“I didn’t mean it that way! Come on, you know what I mean.”  
“Yeah, yeah. I guess if we’re a couple now, I guess you get to have a say in how I look now. I should start listening to you more and stuff.”  
“Couple, yeah, yeah right that’s a thing now. Um, does that mean if we’re a couple now… I get to try kissing you?”  
“Wha… already? Your breath stinks of pizza. We’ve only just done the whole confessing thing. Why are you suddenly so forward? How long have you been holding this back? How much have you planned!?”  
“Relax, Kei. I just want to see, because, um, we’re gonna be doing it a lot in the future, I guess?”  
“Oh, okay, so, um, how am I meant to do this… I just…” Tsukki and Yamaguchi began awkwardly leaning in towards each other, the pair both closing their eyes, either out of not wanting to go through the embarrassment of looking the other in the eye as they shared their first kiss as childhood best friends now turned lovers, or just to try and help the mood. Eventually, their lips met in a simple, extended peck on the lips. The pair both pulled away, Tsukki looking rather embarrassed while Yamaguchi slowly opened his eyes and began smiling at Tsukki.  
“I liked that.”  
“I liked it too, I guess? It wasn’t really a proper full on kiss or anything, we just sort of-“ Tsukki was caught off guard as Yamaguchi had pulled him back towards him by the scruff of his collar, replacing their awkward mess of a first kiss with one that was significantly more passionate, romantic and well executed.  
“I liked that one better.”  
“Where the hell did you learn how to do that!?”  
“I… I don’t know actually.”  
“Oh. So, um, what do you want to do now?”  
“Well, you could hop on the bed with me and cuddle with me like a real couple.”  
“I can do that!” Tsukki clambered his way on to the hospital bed, barely big enough for the two of them with them both only barely staying on thanks to the little metal barricade that surrounded it. Tsukki lay on his back while Yamaguchi climbed on top of him, burying his face in his to Tsukki’s neck and draping his good arm over him, clasping him tightly and pulling him in.  
“This is nice.”  
“Yeah, you’re warm.” Tsukki looked down, expecting a response, only to see that Yamaguchi had shut his eyes and was either trying to fall asleep, or had already fallen asleep on top of him. Tsukki couldn’t disturb his angel-looking boyfriend. His only other choice was to join him in their first sleep together as a couple.


	20. Release

“Excuse me sir. Excuse me.” Tsukki and Yamaguchi’s eyes both opened to see a somewhat anxious, yet flustered nurse standing in front of them, quite clearly unsure of how to react to seeing two teenage boys cuddling in a hospital bed. “Uh, sorry but you, you can’t do that here.”  
“Huh? Oh. Oh! Right. Sorry, Tadashi.”  
“Oh well. It’s going to be a long week waiting until I’m out of here so we can do it again some time. That was nice.”  
Tsukki stared as equally flustered as the intrusive nurse was towards Yamaguchi. The mere talk of anything romantic was already enough to reduce him to a blushing mess. He really wasn’t used to this relationship concept at all. Tsukki flicked his eyes towards the clock sitting on the wall opposite Yamaguchi’s bed. Given how late it was, he was surprised his parent hadn’t called asking why he wasn’t home yet. Especially given that visiting hours were over, which was probably why the nurse had told him to hit the road. Somehow after less than six hours spent with Yamaguchi as a couple, Tsukki was already distraught that he was going to have to go another week without seeing Yamaguchi before he was going to be released from hospital next Friday.  
“So… Do you know what time they’ll be letting you out next week? I want to pick you straight up from here if we’re going to go out and do whatever.”  
“Pick me up? Like a date?”  
“No! Well, ah, yeah? Is it a date if we’re already… together?”  
“Well, Kei. Are we a couple? Or are we dating right now?”  
“Well what do you want?”  
“Um, do we need to date?”  
“So I won’t pick you up then?”  
“That’s not what I meant! What I’m trying to say is that, like, we’ve known each other forever and done a bunch of stuff. Do we need to say we’re dating? Can’t we just say we’re boyfriends?”  
“Yeah. Yeah, I’d like that.”  
“Alright! Good. So I don’t actually know when they’re going to let me out but I’ll call you if I find out. If they don’t tell me just try to pick me up at some point whenever after, maybe 9am? I don’t know what they have to do.”  
“Okay! 9am, or call me, whatever. And you have a whole week to think of whatever you want to do. Okay? So, goodbye then. See you in a week.”  
“Wait, Kei.” Yamaguchi flicked his wrist at Tsukki calling him back towards his bed, dragging him in closer and closer before planting a kiss on his lips. “Bye.”

* * *

A doctor had wandered in to Yamaguchi’s room, waking him up from his sleep. He didn’t particularly want to, but he was working on a schedule and didn’t really want to waste much time. The clock had rang as it struck 9am, doing a better job of waking Yamaguchi up than the doctor’s attempt. His yawn as he sat up in bed had infectiously passed to the doctor who was equally as exhausted from working ridiculous hours. A moment later, Yamaguchi’s mother had come through the door with a rucksack. He unzipped it, looking around inside. It was mostly empty, save for a single set of clothes for him to change in to so he wasn’t leaving the hospital in a gown. It was nothing too fancy, just a plain white t-shirt, a brick red button up t-shirt to wear over it, shorts, a pair of ankle socks, underwear and his shoes. His wallet was inside the pocket of the shorts. It wasn’t exactly weather fitting clothing, but Yamaguchi would just be happy to be wearing something for the first time in nearly a month by this point.   
“So, you don’t need to go out with a crutch or a sling as your ankle and wrist have both healed mostly. We’ll still be leaving the cast on your wrist for another two weeks, but we can take the one off your ankle and just leave it taped up for a week or two. Obviously we have to say don’t do any sort of sport or anything until everything has completely healed and you’ve eased your way back in to full strength. For obvious reasons, when you shower or bathe or whatever, keep the cast out of the water or it’ll dissolve. There’s also this protective boot to strap up on your ankle while you sleep so you don’t have to wear the cast all day and use crutches. Other than that, you should be good to go. Any questions?”  
“Can you guys leave so I can get changed?”  
“We’ll go and get that cast taken off your leg and you can go change then, okay?”  
“Okay.”

* * *

Yamaguchi emerged from the changing room, walking rather uncomfortably after a month off his feet. His mother had guided him, arm in hand to assist him as they took the easy route down the escalator rather than the stairs, eventually exiting and leading him on towards her car to drive safely back home. After the mass of distractions that had filled his entire morning, he had almost totally forgotten that Tsukki was going to be waiting for him in the hospital foyer.   
“Tsukishima’s picking you up? That’s a little… are you sure? I would have thought you’d want to try and spend a couple of day at home recovering a little more. Are you sure you’re able to do whatever if you go out? Do you need me to drive you? Do you need me to pick you up again? Don’t get too used to it though. I’m back at work now that you’re fit…sort of.”  
“Mom, you don’t have to be so protective. I’m fine.”  
“After all you’ve put me through I think I have every right to be protective of you, Tadashi.”  
“Okay, okay, you’re my mom and you love me, but me and Kei   
“Kei? I thought you said that Tsukishima was picking you up.”  
“Mom… mom that’s his name.”  
“Oh, oh! Okay. I didn’t realise you were on that terms. I always thought you called him Tsukki. I didn’t realise that was just to me. You can call him by his name around me. You don’t have to be formal. I’m just your mother.”  
“Well, it’s kind of a new thing, uh…” Yamaguchi rubbed the back of his neck, looking up as his head pointed downwards wanting to make as little eye contact with his mother as he possibly could. “We’re dating now.”  
“Really?” Yamaguchi nodded weakly in response. “You’re serious?” This time he replied with a soft “Yeah,” breaking the minimal eye contact to try and hide his embarrassment about talking about the issue with this mother. “Well, that’s fine I suppose. I feel like I shouldn’t be surprised, but I really am. Guess that when he was visiting a while ba-“  
“Let’s not talk about that.”  
“Okay, okay. Well, do you need me to drop you and him off wherever it is you’re going?”  
“That’d be nice. We’re just going down to the city centre to do some stuff. Somewhere near there is good.”

The pair wandered in to the hospital waiting room to see Tsukki slumped on to a chair, idling away on his phone and leaning on one hand resting against his cheek. He had obviously been kept waiting for quite some time, reaffirmed by the groaning “Finally!” he got when Yamaguchi had come in to the room. “I thought you were expected to be done at 9?”  
“Well, they had to go and take a cast off and make sure absolutely everything was fine before they could let me out.”  
“Well, everything looks fine. You look great. It’s nice to see you in clothes for once.” The look on the face of Yamaguchi’s mother was very telling of how she had interpreted what Tsukki had said. “Anyway, shall we get going?”  
“Yeah. My mom is dropping us off at the town centre if you don’t mind.”  
“Not a problem. It’s started raining yet again so it’d be significantly nicer than walking around, although I think with you wearing shorts and two different t-shirts, it’s even better still for you than it is for me. At least I have a raincoat packed away in my bag. Oh! Speaking of, do you have everything packed for tonight? I see you’ve been brought a bag.”  
“Actually, no. It just had these clothes in it. Uh, mom?”  
“What?” She looked completely oblivious to what they were trying to tell her to do. “No, really. What are you asking me?” Yamaguchi and Tsukki both rolled their eyes in response, as if it was expected that everyone around them would know their plans that they were going back to their Friday sleepovers as if nothing had happened.  
“You know, the whole sleepover thing? Could you pack a bag and drop it off for me?”  
“When did your last servant die off?”  
“Oh come on mom! Five minutes ago you were refusing to let me walk without you holding on and were afraid of letting me go outside on my own, but now you don’t want to do something I’ve asked you to do a couple of times before?”  
“Relax, Tadashi. I’m kidding. I’ll go do it once I’ve dropped you off. I’m sure you two little lovebirds will want me out of your way as soon as possible.” Tsukki stared slack jawed in response. He had never really thought about other people treating them like a couple. He could barely process Yamaguchi treating him like his partner without turning in to a red-faced mess any time he tried to be affectionate.   
“I wasn’t aware that you’d immediately told her we were dating.  
“Well, I kinda had to. You weren’t there, you don’t know the context, but yeah, it doesn’t matter. It’d probably be best if our parents knew. What’d be the point of keeping it a secret? Who cares? Not me. I for one am proud to show off the world my Tsukki.”  
“Stop putting it like that!”  
“You two are so cute together. Good on you guys.”  
“Can we just go now?”  
“Sure, sure, let’s go. Car’s in the parking lot. Be quick. I don’t want to overstay the time rules and get clamped.”


	21. Exploration

Typically, a car ride around town would be a tiresome routine, getting and idly waiting to get to wherever it was Tsukki and Yamaguchi were being driven to, maybe with a little bit of chit-chat with their parents or whoever was riding along with them. Today, however, the pair were fidgeting in their seats, practically stunned silent with excitement to just be able to go around the town together. There was no quiet mumblings of whatever came to mind while driving, just sheer unadulterated joy for Yamaguchi to be able to do, well, anything for the first time in a month, and for Tsukki to be able to have Yamaguchi at his side again. There were little plans for what to do. The town centre never changed, they knew exactly what was there and how little they would usually do if they found themselves there for whatever reason, and yet still they found themselves excited to do anything they could find for fun. To start, Yamaguchi still needed to even out his haircut after they had shaved part of his head for treatment purposes while he was in the hospital.

“Have fun you two!”  
“Thanks for the ride, mom.”  
“Oh, how much money do you need? You need money. Ah, here’s whatever, have fun. I think now’s a pretty good time to treat yourself.”  
“Thanks mom!”  
“A lot more enthusiastic for that than the ride, aren’tchya?”  
“Ah, well…”  
“It’s fine. Enjoy yourselves. Don’t be home too late.”  
“But I’m spending the night at Tsukki’s, remember?”  
“Yeah, and don’t be home too late. I’ll be dropping your stuff off when you let me leave…”  
“Right! Bye!”  
The car pulled away from the shopping centre car park leaving the pair free to do as they pleased with their time. Of course, Yamaguchi wanted to spend as little time as possible with a square patch of short hair diverting the attention of the passers-by. Yamaguchi powerwalked along practically dragging Tsukki at his hip. He had contemplated trying to hold hands in public, but the idea died down when he considered he may already be dragging some unnecessary attention to himself in the first place. Better not to divert even more gazes his way. Eventually they found themselves outside of Yamaguchi’s regular barber. It surprised Tsukki with how upmarket it was, rather designer, rather expensive looking. He didn’t think Yamaguchi cared that much, or could afford it, but then it seemed Yamaguchi could afford anything he wanted from his parents. He just didn’t think he would care this much about style.

“So, what do you have in mind? Just evening it all out? I can’t remember the last time I saw you with short hair, Tadashi.”  
“Well, you said I should get an undercut around the part that’s already short, didn’t you Kei?”  
“Oh, yeah, couldn’t hurt to try.”  
“And I told you that you’d look even better with it. But maybe it’d look good just short at the sides and the back, gel it up on top… Are you going to get your hair done while we’re here? It’s been a couple months now since you’ve been, hasn’t it? You can’t remember the last time I had short hair, but I can’t remember the last time your hair was this long.”  
“I guess so. I’m not sure.”  
“You look fine with short hair so if it doesn’t work just have the rest of it short and it’ll grow back quickly. Couldn’t hurt to try.”  
“Stop using my words against me.”  
“It’s not against you! Try something new for once.”  
“Fine.”  
“You go sit over there. No looking until we’re both done.”  
“Fine…”  
They barked out their orders, sitting patiently as the two men there did their work, Tsukki putting all of his faith of not looking like an idiot in to his boyfriend and his recommended barber. Tsukki had spent his fifteen minutes in silence, but Yamaguchi seemed abnormally chatty with his barber. It wasn’t often that Tsukki saw Yamaguchi being so open to conversation with a stranger, or at least he assumed it was a stranger. Then again, Yamaguchi has probably been seeing this one barber for years at this point, he just didn’t think that Yamaguchi was the kind to make small talk. 

One he was done touching up the roughness around the edges, finishing with cutting and then styling, the barber whisked a mirror around the back of his head, reflecting against the mirror in front of Tsukki to allow him to see the barber’s handiwork. Despite his uncertainty at first, he had to admit that he had done a pretty fine job. Shortened sides, wavy on top. It was refreshing, although admittedly he wouldn’t be used to it for a while, as with any haircut. He paid, hopped off his seat and turned around to see Yamaguchi in perfect synch with him doing the same.  
“Holy…”  
“…shit”  
“You look great,” they both called out in unison before giggling at each other’s apparent telepathy.   
“Tadashi I can honestly say that I never thought this would actually look good on you. Like, I was just saying it because I thought it might be cool not thinking you’d actually do it, but holy shit, you’re hot.”  
“Really? I was kind of doubtful at first, but I guess if you think it’s good, then it must be good, right? Oh, you look good too! It’s all trendy and stuff. I didn’t think it was possible for you to be cooler but here we are.”  
“I think I’d look cooler standing in a queue getting lunch. I’m starving. What time is it? Not even 11 yet. Well, I’m still hungry. Let’s go eat something.”  
“I wanna get a cute outfit to match.”  
“Food first. Outfit later. Since when were you fashion conscious? How hard did you hit your head?”  
“Is it a bad thing?”  
“No! No… We can go buy whatever you want afterwards. I’m just not going to let myself go around town with stomach cramps for the next few hours. There’s a bakery near this place if I remember rightly… I don’t normally come down this way. A little too high brow for my budget, but it’d be nice to do something different.”  
“Why do I expect anything other than Kei wanting cake for lunch?”  
“Elevenses. You have cake for elevenses. Lunch comes later.”  
“Whatever excuse you want.”

The pair wandered aimlessly for a while, looking at the assorted clothes stores and boutiques they knew that neither of them had any chance of affording, even if Yamaguchi did seem to have an endless ability to have whatever he desired, and goes to a fancy salon. They drew stares from a few people, unsure if it was because they looked rather out of place fashion-wise in such an upmarket district, or just as they were so young to be there. Their ambling around the area eventually lead to the bakery that Tsukki had been discussing with a glint in his eye as he seemed eager to dive in to food he wouldn’t be allowed to pay for any other day. His eyes flicked all over the protected counters, not having even the faintest idea of what he could get, there was too much he wanted, too much for his sweet tooth to handle. Yamaguchi just looked on quietly as Tsukki was so drawn in by the treats available. It took a good few minutes of staring before the cashier wondering if they even planned to buy anything or were just two kids with no money who came in to look for the hell of it. Pressed to make a decision, Yamaguchi broke his silence, gesturing to the cashier.  
“We’ll take that one please.” A small smile spread across the cashiers face as she grabbed a pair of tongs and picked up the cake, serving it on a rather large plate, dusting it with cocoa and a spritz of cream before handing it to them. A small heart shaped chocolate cake with a small pink heart and a couple of x’s iced on to it in the top left corner, with LOVE written underneath it, the whole thing just big enough for two. Tsukki blushed knowing full well that Yamaguchi had just ordered them something made for couples, in a public place, with people watching. Tsukki made sure they sat in the far corner of the interior café where as few people as possible would see them, although as soon as he took a bite in to their couples cake, he stopped caring about what anybody around him though. The fact that it was as if he was eating fluffy, frosted heaven made him disregard his appearance and started devouring it almost pig-like, only slowing down to be considerate and not eat the entire thing himself and leave half for Yamaguchi. With its richness, Yamaguchi was more than satisfied after a small part of his side, letting Tsukki devour it for the biggest smile he had seen on his boyfriends face while not in a hospital for quite some time.  
“Too full. Can’t move.”  
“Come on, Kei. You said we’d go buy clothes.”  
“Wear them and come back to the café so I don’t have to move.”  
“Get up, come on.” Yamaguchi started playfully pulling at Tsukki’s hand until he eventually dragged himself up, not letting go of Yamaguchi’s hand as he started to walk out. It was almost as if the food had made him suddenly lose any qualms he may have had about public displays of affection. This time, far more people were staring when they left the bakery. They cared even less.

“This’d look good, what do you think? Should I try it on?”  
“Well you’re already trying on that one, and that one, and also that one, and that one too…”  
“Okay, okay, I’ll just try it on. Oh hey, this’d go great with it!”  
Once they had abandoned the fancier of the local shopping districts for the regular high-street stores, they felt more at home being able to browse through the usual apparel that they would usually be wearing. Tsukki had been dragged around the store after picking out a hoodie with the Jurassic World logo on it from the moment they had walked around the store. He just waited for Yamaguchi to finally stop browsing and actually try on whatever they had. He loved spending time with Yamaguchi, but he was less of a fan of spending his time shopping.  
“Six items.”  
“Men’s changing is on the left.”  
“Thanks.”  
Tsukki sat, legs crossed, arms folded on a small sofa cushion outside the dressing rooms to let him assess Yamaguchi’s sense of fashion. He couldn’t tell if he was exceptionally bored, or if Yamaguchi was extremely slow to change. He found himself counting the tags hanging from the wall for each amount of clothing one would try on to kill the time.   
“What do you think?” Yamaguchi eventually emerged with one pair of pants on a hanger that he had claimed were far too small for him, and one full outfit on, a crimson button up with the sleeves rolled up, showing the cloud grey trim on the inside of the sleeves, the cuffs poking out at the top, the shirt itself forming perfectly with his body as if it had been fitted by a tailor specifically for him. To match, dark grey pants that left Tsukki in somewhat shock as he traced his eyes down from Yamaguchi’s ankles and up his legs, then taking in a greater view of his entire outfit. In his eyes, Yamaguchi looked model-like.  
“You can just skip the rest and buy that. I don’t think you can top it.”  
“What if it the other stuff looks good?”  
“Buy it anyway if you like it, but that is the one to get.”  
“Well, if you say so, we’ll get that and go. It’d be nice to have an outfit you approved of anyway. That way if we ever go out and do something romantic, I can wear it, right?”  
“You nailed this couples stuff quickly, didn’t you?”  
“Well, I’ve kind of been thinking about it for a while. Ah, anyway, I’ll go change out of these and we can pay and go.”

* * *

“The dinosaurs roamed the earth for 135 million years. Humans have been dominant for .00015% of that. They were characterized by their-“  
“This is nothing ground-breaking. I’ve seen a million dinosaur shows like this before.”  
Tsukki flicked the standby button on his remote. Having arrived back home at Tsukki’s residence, the pair had settled for having Yamaguchi snuggle in Tsukki’s lap as the pair wasted their day away watching television. Tsukki rested his chin on the top of Yamaguchi’s head, not caring about ruffling up his hair as they sat together, just enjoying each other’s warmth in the dimly lit bedroom, both satisfied from dinner and comfortable in their grasp, Yamaguchi especially thankful to actually be able to enjoy the warmth of a home for the first time in a month. Tsukki gently spoke, asking Yamaguchi what he wanted to watch instead. No response. “Tadashi?” Still nothing. He moved his head and tilted it to the side, taking a peek at Yamaguchi’s face. His eyes were closed, fast asleep with his head resting back on Tsukki’s chest. Tsukki smiled warmly until being cut short by his mother intruding on their room to collect the evening’s laundry and dishes.  
“Oh. That’s… something.” Tsukki immediately realised the connotations of their positioning, instantaneously realising that he had also not openly told his mother about their relationship as Yamaguchi so eagerly had.  
“Thanks for knocking.”  
“Thanks for warning me about what I might be intruding on.”  
“Do you have a problem with it?”  
“No, no, not at all. Just… shocked. That’s all. Does that mean you’re…?”  
“Yes. And you sound like you have a problem with it.”  
“No, really, I’m just surprised. I knew you never really cared about girls, but then I never really thought you had much of a care romantically in anyone. I had thought you were that, whatever it’s called for not liking anything.”  
“Asexual”  
“That. I didn’t think anything of you and Yamaguchi being so close. How could I have no seen it, what happened to my good mothers intuition. Anyway, that’s all I came in to get, uh, have fun you two.” The sound of the door shutting loudly behind her woke Yamaguchi up from his sudden drift away to sleep.  
“What happened?”  
“Nothing. You can go back to sleep if you want.”  
“Thanks, Kei. I can’t think of anywhere else I’d rather be.” Tsukki threw Yamaguchi off of him, leaving him lying on his back on the bed, Tsukki still laughing while blushing at Yamaguchi’s so innocent romantic comments. He followed up by draping himself on top of Yamaguchi, not wanting to let go of his warmth after cuddling for so long. He began nuzzling against Yamaguchi’s neck, planting soft, gentle kisses down it and to his shoulders and collarbone. Yamaguchi smiled, whether it was out of relaxation, happiness or just love, he was delighted.   
“Can I keep going?” Tsukki looked Yamaguchi in the eye, sliding a hand up his shirt and riling it up, exposing his hips and stomach, moving downwards and kissing his way down to his waist before Yamaguchi finally raised his voice.  
“No. I’m sorry, Kei.”  
“What?”  
“Could you, um, please stop? I just… I’m not sure I’m ready for this yet. I know that you’re excited because I’m back and that’s okay! I know I love you and you love me back, but, I dunno, I just don’t think I’m ready for this just yet. Is that okay?” Tsukki just returned to the warm smile on his face from earlier.  
“Of course. I won’t rush you in to anything you don’t want. I was just being impulsive because I’ve been without you for so long, and, I’m just confused, I don’t know how relationships work, you’re my first kiss, my first boyfriend, my first anything. I don’t know how to show you how much I love you… I’ll control myself. I’m sorry.” Yamaguchi was now returning Tsukki’s smile. “But after such a long day, I think we’d both be happy to just sleep. Can I at least hold you?”  
“Yeah.”  
“Okay, I’ll go get my pyjamas, and you can go and get-“  
“Underwear’s fine.”  
“Oh… okay. I’ll go to the bathroom and change. Back in a-“  
“You don’t have to do that either.” Tsukki began undressing somewhat nervously as Yamaguchi did the same, trying his hardest to respect Yamaguchi’s limits at this point in their relationship. Once they were down to their underwear, and the lights had been flicked off, they both climbed under the blankets, lying on their side with Tsukki clutching Yamaguchi to his chest, relishing in the warmth of skin touching skin as they spent their first full night asleep in each other’s arms, together, and as a couple.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Undercut Yamaguchi? Undercut Yamaguchi. Fashionable Undercut Yamaguchi? Fashionable Undercut Yamaguchi. Sideswept Hair Tsukki? Sideswept Hair Tsukki.


	22. Adjusting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Brief progression from Tsukki's bed to Yamaguchi's first day back at school.

“Morning, Kei.” Yamaguchi spoke softly as he weakly pushed himself upwards with his arms placed firmly on either side of Tsukki. He looked down at his boyfriend lying underneath him. He was still asleep. Not wanting to ruin the perfect image of Tsukki blissfully resting underneath him, glasses off and hair unkempt, Yamaguchi let his arms go weak underneath him, cradling himself back on to Tsukki’s chest to go back to sleep. He shuffled around trying to find a comfortable spot without waking Tsukki up. Every time he thought he had gotten comfortable, he felt something somewhere pressing in to him. Eventually, he realised the source of his woes. “Kei’s… morning wood”  
“Hmm? Good morning to you too, Tadashi.” Yamaguchi blushed as Tsukki nudged him off so he could get out of bed, acting completely oblivious. The alarm clock resting nearly on the bedside table read 11:43am. Tsukki’s parents both would be long at work by now. They had the house to themselves to do whatever they pleased, and yet no idea what to do with it. They hadn’t really made plans other than to just spend time together, whatever that would entail.

“How do you think people at school will take it?” Yamaguchi posed the question of their relationship status as he made a cup of cocoa to go with their near-lunchtime breakfast. The smell of crisping toast filled the kitchen, still chilled from the morning air coming through the open window.  
“Probably with a lot of “I told you so”, seeing as just about everyone thought we were already dating. I doubt anyone will care in the slightest.”  
“Yeah but I’ve seen a lot of horror stories on the net about-“  
“Oh whatever. We don’t live in some backwards place like that.” Tsukki brushed off any doubts Yamaguchi had, returning to enjoying his cereal and staring off in to the distance. Yamaguchi didn’t bother trying to argue with Tsukki, just hold his doubts close to himself and satisfy Tsukki by not bringing it up any more. It would be easier just to focus on their weekend together before they had to go back to the usual mind-numbing rituals of school come Monday morning

* * *

“Tadashi, can I hold your hand?” The pair had met at their lockers before class as they would any other day before school.  
“Uh, maybe not yet… And could you call me Yamaguchi in school?”  
“You’re not still nervous about how people will react, are you?”  
“Of course I am, Tsukki, it’s just so sudden and people were teasing about it before they even knew we were a couple. Who knows what they’d do? High schoolers can be really fucking terrible sometimes. I don’t want anything to happen because of it. It’s only for 7 hours a day. It’s not a big ask, is it?”  
“Whatever. I’m going to class.”  
“But class doesn’t start for ten more minutes.”  
“See you there.” Yamaguchi stared blankly at Tsukki as he rushed off. His attention was quickly diverted as a few people caught wind that Yamaguchi was back in school and out of hospital, and only naturally wanted to know every single detail of what had happened to him. First his friends, then people who had overheard the conversation and realised he was the local child from their local school who had been in the local newspaper for his local accident. News spread quickly amongst the students about it. Everyone wanted juicy gossip about what it was like to almost die. Some were completely blunt about it, some tried to be a little bit subtle, starting with an ice breaker such as “Wow, Yamaguchi, I really like your new haircut, how’s things? How are you? Are you okay?” and the like. Yamaguchi, not a fan of talking to crowds, was feeling rather intimidated by the hoards that had surrounded him. Eventually, the ringing of the school bell saved him as they had to disassemble their crowd and head off to class.

“Welcome back, Yamaguchi. I don’t know if any of your classmates were thoughtful enough to tell you what you’ve missed out on in the last month.”  
“They have, Sir.”  
“Well alright then. If you’re sufficiently caught up, that’s fine. If you need any help understanding any concepts or the like, talk to me after class.”  
“Thank you, Sir.”  
Class droned on and on, Yamaguchi trying his hardest to focus on the new material to help himself avoid falling behind when barely understand the topics he had missed. Tsukki, on the other hand, spent most of the class period distracted and deep in thought, occasionally staring at Yamaguchi and trying not to get caught. He couldn’t wrap his head around why Yamaguchi had such a paranoiac outlook on their relationship. It made absolutely no sense to Tsukki what he could be afraid of. Yamaguchi cited people teasing them in the past about it, but nobody had ever actually done anything harmful towards them. Sure, there were a few jokes from time to time, but it was nothing serious. Surely Yamaguchi would have skin that was slightly thicker than paper to be able to take this kind of playful banter from people in school.  
“Tsukishima.” He had run out of time to think, and was thrown back in to action of class by his teacher calling out his name. “Tsukishima, your answer?”  
“I’m sorry, I don’t know.” No sniggering. Thankfully this time, it wasn’t some sort of blatantly obvious question and he could get away without having worked it out, even if in class, Tsukki was usually one to have most questions answered with relative ease. Now that he had his chance to go back to thinking about what could be bothering Yamaguchi so much, he managed a matter of seconds dwelling on it before the school bell rang and the first period of the day had come to a close. Yamaguchi had bolted out of the classroom to the next period without stopping and waiting for Tsukki, and had gone far too fast for Tsukki to catch up with him, although it was not as if Yamaguchi had any plans to stop and talk to Tsukki right now. It was phasing him. For a couple, Yamaguchi seemed awfully intent on avoiding Tsukki today. Even if he had explained his reasoning, it wasn’t exactly a good reason. In fact, it was terrible reasoning, they both knew there had never been an issue in the past. The thoughts kept returning to Tsukki’s head that Yamaguchi might be embarrassed by him, or he didn’t really care, or was only dating him out of pity or some other absurd reason. Doubt was beginning to creep in, and it was making Tsukki uncomfortable. He didn’t have much time to think about it though as he was rushed off by his teacher, not realising he had been sitting in his seat deep in thought since the bell had rung. Better not to spend the entire day with negative thoughts lurking in his mind. Better to just go to class and talk to Yamaguchi whenever he was willing to talk.

* * *

“It’s about time I caught up with you.”  
“Oh, Hi Tsukki.”  
Lunchtime had come around and the pair had both synched their separate routes to the cafeteria perfectly, leaving them standing next to each other, Tsukki cornering Yamaguchi with nowhere to escape so he could finally pester him for what was wrong. However, all of a sudden Yamaguchi seemed a lot more open, happy and calm. He was less trying to get away from Tsukki, and more just acting like they normally would. He still wasn’t treating Tsukki like the boyfriend that he was, but Tsukki felt like he had won the battle by having Yamaguchi actually break his three hour morning silence.  
“What’s the deal with you today? It feels like you’re avoiding me.”  
“Oh, I’m not, I swear I’m not.”  
“You’re leaving class as soon as the bell goes. You’re not waiting to talk to me. Did you think I was angry at you earlier for suggesting we don’t act like boyfriends at school? I don’t care. High schoolers are idiots. They’ll be stupid, whatever, I don’t care. I just want to know what’s up. You’re so completely out of character today.”  
“No, really, it’s nothing important at all.”  
“What could be so unimportant that it completely changes your usual personality?”  
“I’m not kidding when I say it’s nothing. I just got completely swarmed by people this morning wanting to know how I was, what happened, you know. It’s not something I really want to have to constantly remind myself of and tell people about. I’d prefer to just be left alone for a little bit and avoid the confrontation. I keep getting a bunch of strangers acting like we’re suddenly friends. People I’ve never talked to trying to ask me what it’s like to be nearly dead. It’s weird and I don’t like it. It’s nothing that’s your fault Tsukki. Really.”  
“Why didn’t you just say that before? I would have done something about it. People aren’t going to be harassing you when I’m around and telling them to back the fuck off.”  
“Well, you rushed away in the morning before I noticed that it was a problem. Seeing as I was avoiding people, I didn’t exactly have many great opportunities to stop and tell you to protect me and act like a bodyguard. It’d be way too much to ask anyway. You have a life outside of me. I don’t want to have to make you constantly spend all your time with me.”  
“Are you fucking kidding me? We’re boy- Ah, we’re, you know. If you think I don’t want to spend as much time as possible around you, I think you’re severely underestimating the effort that goes in to a relationship like that.”  
“Yeah, but…”  
“But? What if we end up, you know… married some day? Do you think I’d still not want to spend time with you? Come on Tada- Yamaguchi. I don’t care at all. I can stick around you all day for all I care. I’d be more than happy to.”  
“But I already told you I don’t want people at school to think we’re a couple or anything. If you were protecting me like that, it might-“  
“Why is that such an issue? About that, I was meaning to ask, why are you so concerned about people thinking we’re a couple or something? It’s not like people would care, nobody cares, and nobody has ever seriously said anything. Nobody. Not one soul. It’d be fine. I get that you don’t want to, and I can accept it, I just want to know your reasoning.”  
“I just… don’t want to. Please understand.”  
“It’s something you can’t say. You can trust me with anything. Surely you know that you can trust me. It’s like you’re hiding something and I’m apparently not good enough to know what it is?”  
“You said you can accept it. If you really are respectful of my wishes, you wouldn’t try to question it. Okay? We can still do whatever outside of school, just not in it, is that fine?”  
“Fine.” Tsukki rolled his eyes and sighed as the pair picked up their trays and moved towards the cafeteria lunch tables, joining up with Kageyama and Hinata at a full table so that Yamaguchi would appear distracted and nobody would try to bother him any more about his rather traumatic experience. The usual lunchtime chitter-chatter helped Yamaguchi feel back at home after so long out of school. He would still have to go back to the hospital in a week to get the cast of his wrist, the last remaining sign of his accident. At least once that was gone, he would be able to go back to practicing volleyball, and at this point, and with nationals tantalisingly close, he craved it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay it's a filler chapter to set up the next arc of the story  
> Sorry


	23. Promises

“I want you to be absolutely sure that you are ready to do this. I don’t want to be held responsible, Tsukishima doesn’t want to be held responsible… I don’t think anybody on the team wants to feel responsible if you end up hurting yourself because you’re trying to practice when there’s a chance that you just might not be ready yet. So I want a clear answer. Do not lie to me because you dream of the grandeur of nationals. Do not lie to me because you don’t like feeling left out. Yamaguchi, are you absolutely and one hundred percent fully confident that you’re actually able to play without hurting yourself?”  
“Yes Captain. I’m positive.”  
“You nearly died. That was five weeks ago. Sportspeople can be out for many, many months with far less serious injuries. When we were in second year, Suga tore one ligament in his hand. Do you know how long he was out of practice for? Three months. You broke your wrist and only got the cast off three days ago, and you already think you’re ready to practice? I’m starting to think that… Look, I understand that you think you’re able to practice, and I’m only looking out for you when I say this, but even if you think you’re ready, I don’t think you are. I don’t think your doctor said you are absolutely ready to play volleyball.”  
“He said I could do light training.”  
“Light training. Light training is a miniscule fraction of what we normally do. Nationals are coming up this month and I don’t even know if you’ll be back on full training and with an acceptable amount of match fitness to be able to play, even if you are able to do ‘light training’ now. Do you know what light training is? Jogging, stretches, you shouldn’t even be touching a volleyball for at least a couple weeks more. I don’t want to see you hurt, nobody here wants to see you hurt. You can still do light practice that you say you’re able to do if you have a routine that you’ve been told to do, but you’re not practicing fully with the team. You can stay in the gym if you want, but not on the court. Not until you’re fully cleared to play again by your doctor or whoever-“  
“I’m only talking to a private physiotherapist now.”  
“Well, I’m just assuming you’ve not actually met him yet because there is no way he would say you’re ready. Until he says that you can, and Coach Ukai will second this for me, you aren’t playing volleyball. I’m sorry to disappoint you, but we’re looking out for you. You’re important for the team, so we want to minimize any risk that we won’t have you play. Quite frankly, it’s better for you if you aren’t trying to train than if you are right now. Okay?”  
“Sure.”

Looking downtrodden and defeated, Yamaguchi slumped his way towards Tsukki standing at the side-lines and talking idly with Nishinoya. Seeing the look of a beaten man on Yamaguchi’s face, Nishinoya slinked away to allow Yamaguchi the space to complain to Tsukki about the problems that were unbeknownst to him. Yamaguchi kept consistently staring solemnly towards the floor, hands in pocket and shoulders sank as far down as they could. Tsukki could immediately pick up on the usual signs of Yamaguchi being genuinely upset having known him for so long. He would always go quiet and his body would look like it was on the verge of collapsing in a heap and giving up. Even though he struggled to regularly start for Karasuno’s team, Yamaguchi was distraught by the idea of not even having the chance to fight for a spot, at least not until he was told by everyone how his own body was going to be able to cope with the stress.  
“Now, I know you’re not going to tell me what’s wrong without me explicitly asking you what’s wrong, so instead of sulking, tell me what’s bugging you so I can help out.”  
“I don’t like that you can read me.”  
“I don’t like it when you don’t tell me what’s wrong.”  
“Well, Daichi told me that I’m not allowed to play volleyball until my physio explicitly says that I can play volleyball. All he’s letting me do is run and clean up and do stretches and stuff. How am I supposed to keep in shape and keep fit if I can’t play volleyball? And running is boring. I shouldn’t even be here if I can’t play volleyball. It’s just a waste of time. It wouldn’t matter if I just dropped away until I’m ready and by then it’ll be too late to be ready to play in Nationals and chances are we just fluke it to Nationals this year anyway and I won’t ever get to play in them again and I-“  
“Enough. You’re such a pessimist.”  
“I’m just being realistic.”  
“No, you’re being a pessimist. If we made it to Nationals this year, we can make it again next year. In case you haven’t noticed, we only have two third years in the team. Once everyone improves, we’ll be able to keep up at the same level. Once we get new first years, they’ll be able to help the team. Everyone is constantly improving, including you.”  
“Well I can’t improve if I’m not doing anything.”  
“But that’s where you’re wrong, Yamaguchi. You are doing something. Just because you can’t play volleyball doesn’t mean you can’t practice basic skills. After all, you can run to keep fit and keep up stamina. Nobody is telling you that you can’t run and keep your cardio up. You can jump to practice your blocking, because who’s going to tell you that you can’t jump? Look at Hinata. He got to how he is without being able to practice volleyball. There’s absolutely no reason why you can’t either.”  
“Well, Hinata kind of sucks at just about everything but jumping and spiking.”  
“Right. But you have those basic skills that you can practice when you’re told that you’re allowed to practice them. So, stop being a pessimist, and if you really care about impressing everyone, including yourself, you’ll find a way to help yourself improve and get ready for your grand appearance at Nationals. And if it’s any consolation, you said it wouldn’t matter if you weren’t here… Even if you aren’t practicing, you still make practice more fun for me, so there’s that at least. But you are going to practice. You’re going to practice but you aren’t going to play volleyball. Are you up for the challenge, or are you just going to let yourself not play at Nationals?”  
“I don’t know if I’m up for it…”  
“Are you kidding me? I give you this impassioned speech, and you tell me you aren’t up for it? Of course you’re up for it. I’ll make you up for it. I want you to be able to play at Nationals and I want the best for you. I don’t give a damn if you don’t think you can because I know that you can.”  
“Okay then, mister coach Tsukishima. Let’s cut it as a deal. You’re going to be my motivation to help get me to play at Nationals. If you can get me to play at nationals, I’ll give my coach any one thing that he wants.”  
“Wait, what? I’m going to make you do all the work and you’re going to pay me back for it? Sweet deal. I’m in.”  
“Wait, crap! That’s not how that was meant to come out!”  
“How was it meant to come out?”  
“Well, uh, I kinda blew it now, but um, if you’re up for it, if I manage to get myself to play at Nationals, you’ll do anything I want from you… That way I have something to motivate myself to try and play.”  
“What do you want so much from me that you’d suddenly decide you’re not a pessimist and motivate yourself to be the best Yamaguchi you can damn be?”  
“I don’t actually know yet… but I’ll think of something eventually! It’s pretty powerful to have full control of one wish from you, so I’ll make sure to think of something good so that I know this will all be worth it!”  
“Won’t playing in Nationals be worth it?”  
“That too… But I think having control over my boyfriend would make anything worth it.”  
“Don’t say stuff like that in public! Are you trying to embarrass me Yamaguchi? What if people hear? I thought you didn’t want people to know we were a couple.”  
“Relax, Kei, nobody can hear us when we’re talking quietly and they’re practicing. I can tell you from sitting on the side-lines that volleyball is really loud. Really, really loud.”  
“Well, I guess now I have to find time to practice myself and help you practice.”  
“Oh, crap, I didn’t think about that!”  
“It’s fine. You already practice your serves outside of practice in the first place so it won’t be anything new until you’re ready to play again according to the doctors or Daichi or whoever it is that thinks you’re not ready for this, and when we’re done, I think it’s only fair that with all the scheduling issues I get one thing I want from you as well. How about that? That’s fair. Motivation for both of us. Are you up for it?”  
“I’m up for it.”  
“And you promise that we’ll both go through with it?”  
“I promise.”

Tsukki smiled at Yamaguchi, trying his hardest not to wrap his arms around him and cuddle in the middle of the gymnasium for all to see. He hated not being able to show how much he cared about Yamaguchi in public, but at least he knew that once they were done with school they could do whatever they wanted. It was just too bad that they only had one day per week to spend time together after school, their Friday’s. Or at least up until now. Now they would have their time practicing alone after school every day on top of the basic fitness work Yamaguchi would be doing to keep himself somewhat in shape in regular practice. He could show as much affection as he wanted when they practiced, and yet, he knew that it would probably not be the best use of their time. On the bright side, it would all be worth it in the long run when he got his one desire out of Yamaguchi.


	24. Revival

Yamaguchi sat in the waiting room of a physiotherapist’s office. ‘Three weeks’ was constantly repeating in his mind. He had three weeks until nationals, and he had to be ready to play in that amount of time. If the physio said anything longer than that, there was no hope that Daichi was going to let him practice, let alone play around the time of nationals. The pessimist in him was constantly replaying Daichi’s words in his head. That such a major injury would put him out for months and months. On the other hand, his optimist told him it had already been five weeks and he had three more to get better. That’s two months to recover. He did his research and a broken wrist would only put him out for six weeks so he should already be on the verge of coming back to play. He was just concerned about the possibility of the physio saying he would be out for four weeks and narrowly miss the greatest opportunity of his volleyball career. He could take two months out, three months out, the rest of the schoolyear out, but just barely failing to be fit for nationals would have killed him inside.

“Yamaguchi?” A nurse popped her head out of the doorway and looked around the half-empty office. Yamaguchi silently got up and smiled at the nurse, walking through as she stepped aside for him. He was welcomed by a gruff sounding hello from the physiotherapist. It didn’t match his open and warm smile that came with it. Yamaguchi’s heart was pulsating fiercely as he sat down, the welcoming look of the man before him doing nothing to help. He played with his fingers between his legs as he sat down on the edge of the therapists table.  
“Your doctor referred you here after a serious accident, correct?” Yamaguchi was picking up the faintest hint of an accent, as if he had immigrated a long, long time ago. His mind began wandering between the questions he was asked, linking his own personal speculation about this physiotherapist’s life to his own. Was he lonely moving to a new place like Yamaguchi was when growing up? Did he have the same fire in him to succeed despite that? Did he have somebody to rely on in his time of need? It was an odd time to have a point of reflection on his life, but after going through so much trauma it seemed like Yamaguchi had far more of an interest in life. It seemed like it was doing a good enough job of taking his mind off of the constant fear that he wouldn’t be fit to play volleyball in time. It was an odd choice of distraction, but one that worked. It continued on during his examination until the physio was done, and Yamaguchi had to ask the important question.  
“How long until I can play again?” The physio looked over his shoulder while rummaging around in a drawer on the opposite side of the room before slowly walking over to Yamaguchi, the peace-inducing smile on his face returning as it had when he was welcomed in to the doctor’s office.  
“Well, given what you went through and how quickly you’re as fit as you are now, I’d say anywhere between two to perhaps four or five weeks. I would normally say three to six, but you seem to be recovering rather quickly.” Yamaguchi seemed to have stolen the smile off of the physio’s face, as his tone suddenly turned serious as Yamaguchi became a bundle of joy. It was the first time that he seemed legitimately intimidating in a way that matched his stature. “You look like you have something important you want to get back to. My word of advice is: don’t. You’ll aggravate your injuries trying to rush back when you aren’t ready. Treatment is complete when it’s complete. Not when you feel it’s complete. I know your body better than you do. That’s why I have this job.”  
“Two to four weeks.”  
“Two to four or five weeks.” Yamaguchi sunk back in to the physio table in a mild state of embarrassment as the physio handed him a light routine to help get himself back in to shape. It was the kind of boring thing he expected to give up on in a few days, 10 times doing a circle with his wrist, 10 times bending his hand back and forward, the same drab things he would expect form a physio plan. Nonetheless, if that’s what would get him back in time for the match rather than just after it, he would do it.  
“I’ll see you in two weeks for a follow up appointment. Talk to the lady at the receptionists desk for a time, date and paying for today’s session. Remember what I said. Don’t push yourself harder than I tell you to.”  
“Got it.”  
“I mean it.”  
“Got it.”

* * *

Tsukki as a coach was far from the most effective strategy, but Yamaguchi didn’t have much other choice. He had no idea how to actually train somebody to be fit and healthy again, but when it came to Yamaguchi, there was no way he wouldn’t at least try. Generally, they would do an hour a day, sometimes more if Yamaguchi felt like he could handle it. Tsukki had the constant underlying fear that Yamaguchi was pushing himself too hard with the extra hours, but it didn’t seem to be having a negative impact, so he hesitantly allowed it. His schedule primarily consisted of general cardio fitness training rather than the technical skills. It had only been a week since he had been told he could theoretically make it to nationals, but he still had to convince Daichi. Not becoming exhausted after five minutes of practice was certainly more important than technique right now. Yamaguchi would be happier to sit on the bench and not play than to not even be considered. At least it would have meant his hard work had paid off, even if he wasn’t deemed good enough to hang with the likes of Hinata and Kageyama.  
Over the next few days, Tsukki was beginning to slip in some more useful routines in to the regimen he had made for Yamaguchi. Now he was practicing jumping, doing light receiving practice, but not practicing his serving. He wanted the doctor’s word before he could do that. He didn’t want to end up accidentally throwing his shoulder because he wasn’t ready for the rather forceful and intricate technique. His primary concern was getting his clearance at the appointment that was coming up rapidly.

* * *

“I don’t see much change. Does it feel better?” The physiotherapist’s words were like an icy dagger piercing his soul. He had worked his ass off for the past two weeks to be ready like he was told he could be, only for him to say that he hadn’t made much if any progress. There was still a week to go, but thanks to scheduling he couldn’t push things forward a little bit. He was on the verge of begging and pleading for clearance.  
“It feels a lot better! I’ve been doing light practice for the last two weeks and I’m itching to get in to real practice again. Are you sure you don’t think there’s a real difference? This whole low level training is a breeze. I’m totally ready to play again.” Yamaguchi wasn’t lying to try and sway his physio. He really was sick and tired of having to deal with Tsukki’s light practice. As much as he appreciated the gesture and it really did benefit him, it was the same boring things day in day out and he wanted to be able to actually play volleyball again.  
“I’ll be the judge of that.” Yamaguchi felt utterly put in his place. The physio returned to his examination before leaving the room momentarily to talk to a nurse. He returned with a slip of paper in his hand and began scrawling something Yamaguchi couldn’t particularly read on to it. When he was done, he handed it to Yamaguchi and smiled at him. Yamaguchi followed suit once he could make out most of what it said after slow and careful re-reading of it.  
“So I can play?”  
“You can return to practice, but don’t play any full length matches for at least two more weeks. The extra strain should be held off until you’re succeeding in practice and ready to play.  
“That’s okay! I’m a pinch server.”  
“I can’t say I know what that is, volleyball isn’t my speciality in this clinic. If you’re trying to tell me it’s a low intensity role, stop. No full matches yet.”  
“Actually it means I only play incidentally as an impact player to throw the opposition off. My practice is more intense than actually playing.”  
“I’ll have to take your word for it, but don’t be too shocked if you end up pushing yourself too hard and end up back on my table and out of pocket. No full matches. Anyway, that’s all from me. Book another follow up appointment if you think it’s necessary, but for now you can head outside and talk to the receptionist about pay and whatnot.”

Yamaguchi stood at the receptionist desk trying his hardest not to start screaming with excitement. He still had time in the day to return back to Karasuno for the afternoon practice and get right in to the thick of the action. Instead, the first thing he did was pull out his phone and immediately call Tsukki to tell him the good news. No answer. Yamaguchi tried again, but still no answer. He wasn’t the type to leave voicemail or text, he would rather just wait to see in person what Tsukki was up to. He went on his way back to Karasuno for their evening session, putting it at the back of his mind, focusing solely on the sheer elation of finally being able to get ready for the game.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I planned out a bullet point summary of the current story arc. This chapter hit one of them. Usually a chapter covers maybe 6-10. Talk about filler. The juicy stuff is coming  
> P.S. sorry for the 6 week hiatus. I had stuff and things and also other fics to work on.


	25. Mistake

The gym was bustling with energy once Yamaguchi had arrived. The entire team was going about business as usual as Yamaguchi stood in the doorway, unsure of whether or not he wanted to enter. It was as if he was a child in fear of talking to strangers again, when all he had done was be away from the team for a few weeks. While his thoughts were pending, Tsukki called out his name, inviting him over to find out the latest news. Yamaguchi had full intent of cutting off whatever Tsukki was going to say or ask first so he could get a word in and tell him of his excitement to be back at training. After that, the plan was to show Daichi that he was okay and then he’d be practicing again, just like before everything that had happened to him occurred.  
“Tsukki! Look what I’ve got!” Yamaguchi flaunted a slip of paper in front of Tsukki’s face, the tall boy swatting it out of mid-air in the frustration of not being able to see what was actually on it with Yamaguchi’s frantic movements. He quickly glossed over the formal and boring text until he got down to the part that was important. The all clear to be able to play with his team again. A broad smile spread over Tsukki’s face. He so very rarely looked genuinely happy to have seen something, but he couldn’t have made it clearer that he was excited to have Yamaguchi back and ready to play, and that he had helped to make it happen. Sure, he hadn’t done especially much that Yamaguchi couldn’t have done on his own, but he liked to think that the help and motivational aspect of his attempt to get Yamaguchi fit was a deal-breaker. One that was greatly responsible for getting him back here.  
“That’s amazing, Yamaguchi. So you can practice with us today, right? How are you serves seeing as you haven’t done one in like, two months at this point?”  
“Why would I know?” Yamaguchi treated Tsukki like an idiot for asking such a simple and harmless question. He had every right to treat Tsukki that way. As he had said, it had been two months. Yamaguchi hadn’t done a single one in that period, how could he have been expected to know what his performance was like? Tsukki reasonably quickly realised the mistake in what he had said and decided to move on instead of trying some sort of snarky wordplay fight with Yamaguchi.  
“Anyway, what better way to find out than to try? We’ve got about a week until nationals at this point, surely that’s enough time to de-rust and get back in to it?” Tsukki was awfully confident in how quickly Yamaguchi could recover. He had admittedly recovered exceptionally quickly from just about everything that had come in his way, but it wasn’t like his jump float serves were easy. They were technical, he was the only person on the team who could do it, and getting back in to being able to do it would only be an added bonus and not a necessity to the team. There was no real rush other than Yamaguchi desperately wanting to play. He would have to get back in to comfortably performing his serves in a very short amount of time if he wanted any chance of that happening.

The gymnasium’s usual commotion was a welcome sight for Yamaguchi. Once practice had begun, and he had done his warm ups, he immediately went straight on to practicing his serves just as he wanted, as Tsukki had suggested, but most importantly, Daichi had told him that that was what he wanted to see from him. If his captain said that was what he should do, he would do it. He wasn’t particularly happy that his worth was valued by his ability to be a one trick pony with his serves, but he couldn’t find room to complain about having a chance to get in to the team. He would obediently practice and practice his jump float serves until he could get them perfect, but that wouldn’t come instantly. At first, they were exceptionally rough. He couldn’t even serve properly, let alone execute an ideal jump float serve. He was constantly missing the ball, hitting the net, putting the ball out of play and so on. He was finding new and creative ways to mess up a serve. It was understandable as a sort of warm up after not having done it for two months. He figured he could brute force his way in to being able to do it. Muscle memory was what he was trying to rely on, but it wasn’t coming instantly. Time and time again, he was laying up his serve almost perfectly, that much he had gotten down, but when it came to hitting it, he couldn’t achieve even the most basic of serves. He really was out of touch. At the rate he was going, he was never going to be even slightly close to ready. He needed a confidence booster, but it wasn’t coming.

Over the course of practice, he began to occasionally hit one or two serves in a row and not mess them up. They were still poor, ending up on bad areas of the court, but less and less were hitting the net and going wide. It was an improvement, but he was getting in to a habit of consistently performing poor serves, rather than occasionally hitting good ones. It was a somewhat understandable situation. Once he had started getting his serves somewhat off the mark instead of completely off it, he would repeat what he was doing to get the half-decent serves rather than the failing method he was using before. Unfortunately, it only served to make him constantly hit poor serves and begin to feel comfortable hitting these poor serves. Yamaguchi felt like he was making progress, but it was only a placebo effect caused by his own unawareness of the habit he was slipping in to. Tsukki, as ever analytical as usual, could quite clearly see what he was doing. The problem was, he didn’t know how to help him. He could offer words of advice, but Tsukki didn’t have the faintest clue of how to hit a jump float serve. Anything he said might only make things worse. Daichi was also intently watching Yamaguchi’s attempt at improvement and was in the same boat as Tsukki. They tried to chip in and articulate some meaningful advice, solely because at this point it was necessary to stop Yamaguchi from settling in a rut of mediocrity and being happy to settle for it.  
“Look, this isn’t working,” Daichi called out somewhat aggressively at Yamaguchi. He didn’t want to put pressure on to him by making it seem like he was upset that Yamaguchi wasn’t recovering fast enough, but he needed to firmly let him know that he was doing something wrong. There was a very fine balance between scaring and lecturing Yamaguchi. Admittedly, he was a fragile soul.  
“Daichi is right. He can see it and I can see it. Do you know why you aren’t hitting these consistently, Yamaguchi?”  
“I’m not practicing hard enough?” His response was stuttered and seemingly confused. Yamaguchi really had become sunken in to the mind-set that it would come to him eventually. It wasn’t his fault, he was still naïve and a young player without any experience of coming back from an injury before. Daichi rolled his eyes, Tsukki sighed. No, it wasn’t that he hadn’t been practicing hard enough.  
“Run me through your serves. Step by step.” Daichi never unfixed his stern gaze from Yamaguchi’s eyes. It wasn’t blatantly clear to Yamaguchi that he was getting at something.  
“Well, I just, you know, lay it up, run and then serve it, same as always.”  
“Exactly. Same as always. You’re doing the same as always, and it’s not working. Be honest with me, are you just trying to get one that works and rushing through as many serves as you can in a short amount of time so you can finally say you got it to work?” Yamaguchi kept quiet. His eye contact veered off to the floor. Daichi could read him like a book, and Yamaguchi knew it. “Look, Yamaguchi, I get that you want to be able to play as soon as possible, but this takes time. It’s a highly perfected skill of yours that took a lot of time to get good at. It’s not going to come back without the same amount of dedication and patience as it took to learn it. You’re frustrated, I get it. Practice is nearly over for the day. I’d suggest you did some stretches to finish off the day, go home, and come back tomorrow with a different attitude so you can make more progress, okay?”  
“Okay.”

Yamaguchi of course had to heed Daichi’s advice. Come practice the next afternoon, he looked excited and raring to go. He had skipped his warm-ups at first only to be called back by a militant Sugawara who only wanted to make sure that nobody got cramps. He glanced back to his words of wisdom, to not try to rush himself, as he started his serves for the day. As he usually would, he laid the ball up, made his run and attempted to serve it, only for it to fall narrowly out of bounds. He seemed downbeat as if he would magically be able to perfect his serves on the first try, but he wouldn’t let it get to him. He had been told to stay focused on just patiently getting it right, so patient he would be. On the opposite side of the court was Tsukki, practicing blocks while constantly glaring at Yamaguchi, watching his every move and making sure he didn’t fall in to the same trap he had yesterday, and making sure that everything was going okay. The downside was that his own game was a little off, but he was key enough for the team to be able to get away with a few bad blocks while making sure Yamaguchi could achieve his goals.

The end of the day yielded slow but steady results. Yamaguchi was send a lot less serves in to the net and generally was hitting them out of play or barely in bounds. At the rate he was going, within a day or two he’d be able to ask Daichi or Noya to try to receive his serves. That way once he was consistently getting them on target to them, he could start focusing on trying to beat them with his jump float serves. Admittedly, he figured his chances of actually getting to play in the tournament were slimming with every day, but he had gotten this far based on listening to what everyone had to say to him. He was cutting it fine, but he never went against what he was told by doctors, physios, and his captain said to him. He kept the idea at the back of his mind that no matter what he did, it was for the best, and if he tried to act on his own, he would only make things worse. It didn’t help that his own insecurities were backed up by Daichi’s stern talk the day before, but at least he was starting to make progress.

With the Nationals in two days, Yamaguchi was beginning to feel confident that he had a growing chance of at least staying as a pinch server for the games they played. He had put next to no time in to blocking or receiving or spiking so there was absolutely zero hope of getting on the court for more than a few seconds, but if he could perfect his jump float serves, he would at least be able to feature in some way, and perfecting them was just what he felt close to doing. He had been able to get teammates to start practicing their receives with his serves, a great step up from constantly messing up over the previous few days. The impression he had was that he had actually improved his serving overall, and couldn’t even remember the last time he had hit the net. Consistency was key, and he had found it. So much for the ‘don’t brute force it’ attitude that he had been told to drop. He may have been patient like he was told to, but so many days of solid serves and only serves really was beginning to have an impact. Occasionally, he was hitting a decent jump float serve. They were showing up here and there, but the majority of them were relatively easy receives for his teammates. This wasn’t a bad thing necessarily. If he got called in, at least the ball would stay in play. It might be an issue if the opposition could set it and score a point off of a counter attack, but at least he wouldn’t be solely responsible for their concession. The main thing was that Yamaguchi was able to hit his serves decently. He still wasn’t hitting them perfectly. Not once had he actually scored a practice point off of one, but he was at least getting it to swing mid-air. Granted, Noya was hardly the easiest opponent to beat, but he still wanted to finally get one through. Tsukki was now staring on at his side, rather bored of practicing blocking and wanting to see Yamaguchi’s progress close up. Most of the team were occasionally side eyeing him. After all, Yamaguchi’s story was rather inspirational and after all he’d been through the team obviously wanted him to achieve his best and be able to play. It was around that moment when towards the end of practice, hardly any time to practice even ten more serves, he had played the ball in to the air, hit it, and it swivelled gracefully in the air, narrowly avoiding Noya’s forearm and gently hitting the floor before rolling off. He had managed to hit one perfectly for the first time since returning to practice. The team practically went in to uproar in response, Tsukki charging up to him and pulling him in to his arms in an embrace of celebration as the team quickly began to swarm around him. Tsukki quickly pecked his boyfriend on the cheek as a means of congratulations before pulling away and going wide eyed, prompting Yamaguchi to call him out on what was suddenly wrong.  
“Oh shit. We were a secret to the rest of the school.”


	26. Overwhelmed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the 4 month hiatus. On the bright side, I wrote a 125k fic in the meantime! Go me. I'm sorry if there's plot discrepancies I haven't... well, tended to this fic in 4 months. But I am not a man who quits so even if it's not the quality of a fic perfectly planned out all at once and written in one several day/week period, I'm going to get this finished and give you the gratifying ending you guys want.

“Did he just…?”

“Uhh…”

“You owe me 1000 yen, Suga.”

The odd chatters of disbelief spread amongst those who had actually witnessed the mistake. Most people didn’t really understand what the fuss was about because hardly anyone had seen it. Daichi caught a glimpse amongst the muddled up celebrations. Tanaka was somewhat speechless. Asahi didn’t want to say anything or look presumptuous. Even though only three people had noticed, Tsukki decided he would make matters worse by acknowledging the very few people who witnessed it and trying to dignify them with a response.

“That… was an accident, I just… Don’t misinterpret that as romantic. I was just… caught up, we’ve been through a lot, that… no homo?” Tsukishima laughed nervously. His attempt at damage control was only making things worse for the people who saw and confusing the living hell out of those who didn’t.

“What the hell is he talking about?” A faint whisper

“Tsukishima just kissed Yamaguchi in celebration.” An even fainter response amongst the minor crowd to try and not make it clear (when Tsukki was in hearing distance) that they were chattering behind their back.

“Oh, shit…” There was a moment of awkward silence as the crowd became less tightly packed in celebration of Yamaguchi’s return to form, before to the shock of everyone in the vicinity, Yamaguchi bolted off and out of the gym, no intent of grabbing his things from the locker room or changing back in to his uniform, he simply darted for the exit and didn’t look like coming back. Tsukishima called out for him before chasing, and for the sake of mediating things, Sugawara followed suit turning things in to a makeshift police chase as everyone tried to sort out the situation on their own accord. Some others thought it would be funny to try and chase after them, but Daichi would intervene to leave things to the people involved. It helped that Sugawara had already talked plenty with Tsukki and Yamaguchi since his accident and would likely have a stronger insight in to the problem than anybody else. It was best to let the teams ‘expert’ sort this out.

 

Tsukki turned a corner to find Yamaguchi resting his face on his forearm, hunched over a wall and seemingly deep in thought. His face showed tinges of red, whether it be out of exhaustion from running or the embarrassment of Tsukki unwittingly making their ‘secret’ relationship public, or at least seemingly public. He wasn’t sure if the damage could be recovered by Tsukki’s terrible attempt at implying “just bros being bros, bro”. Sugawara arrived promptly afterwards, keeping his distance as it seemed that neither Tsukki nor Yamaguchi had realised he was there.

“Tadashi, I’ll be the first person to admit that I fucked up.” Tsukki paused to think carefully about the next choice of words he would utter. Yamaguchi looked like he could snap at any second. Instead, he left them in an awkward silence that was interrupted by Yamaguchi before Tsukki had the chance to formulate his apology.

“Why didn’t you just admit it then and there?” Yamaguchi didn’t break his gaze, fixated at the floor beneath his feet.

“Excuse me?”

“You kissed me in public and you tried to play it off as a joke or an accident.” Yamaguchi turned around to make eye contact with Tsukki. Sugawara dived behind a wall, hopefully before Yamaguchi had noticed him eavesdropping.

“We’re supposed to be keeping it a secret. You’re the one who wanted it that way.” Tsukki defended himself, and rightly so. It was Yamaguchi’s idea in the first place to try and keep things hidden.

“Why didn’t you just say then and there that you messed up? Are you ashamed of me or something? Every single person knows now and you don’t just admit it.” Yamaguchi’s frustrations turned to uncharacteristic yelling, which only served to make Tsukki break his usual calm and quiet demeanour to do the same, turning their mild scuffle in to a full blown argument.

“You’re the one who was telling me to hide it in the first place! I was just trying to do what you asked me to. I’d do anything for you, you’re getting mad at me for being loyal to what you want?” Tsukki tutted as he finished, rolling his eyes as if there was already some breakdown over something completely trivial. Yamaguchi was completely overreacting.

“But you’ll act like we’re more distant than before we were a couple.”

“Why are you acting so god damn stubborn? I haven’t done anything wrong. You’re getting mad at me because you asked me to do something and I did it. If you didn’t want to try and hide it then why did you tell me to? Do you see how unreasonable you’re being?” Tsukki was trying to explain as clearly as possible how much of an ass for seemingly no reason Yamaguchi was being. Yamaguchi retaliated by barging his way over to Tsukki, grabbing a fistful of jacket in each hand and trying to push him against the wall, before seemingly wincing in pain and letting go, holding his wrist. Yamaguchi muttered inaudible nothing to himself that Tsukki was starting to see a connection to everything else in. Yamaguchi didn’t wait for Tsukki to speak before grumbling at him.

“I’m fine.” Tsukki rolled his eyes at the blatant lie.

“I get it. I do. You’re not fully healed yet and you’re playing through being hurt, your emotions are running crazy, you feel like you’re capable of playing because you hit a serve correctly, but it still hurts, and you know deep down you’re a ticking time bomb pushing yourself too hard.” In the distance, Sugawara was sighing to himself somewhat disappointedly. Tsukki was right. All this was the pot that was Yamaguchi’s emotions boiling over and looking for any excuse to vent his frustrations without admitting that he’s not capable.

“I said I’m fine.”

“Is this fine?” Tsukki grabbed the wrist that Yamaguchi was trying to nurture with his other hand, eliciting another wince of pain out of him before Tsukki let go before he made the underlying injury worse. “You can say you’re not able. There’ll be opportunities in the future. Don’t make things worse in the long term for a short term success.”

“But what if we don’t…“ Yamaguchi’s obvious concerns were silenced by Tsukki’s interruption.

“There’ll be opportunities in the future. Just think of how good we’ll be once we’re second or even third years. We’ll make nationals again for sure.”

“But… we…” Yamaguchi’s stuttering collapsed in to him breaking down. What moments ago was Yamaguchi just sitting misty eyed, had led to tears freely streaming down his cheeks. He buried his face in to Tsukki’s chest as Tsukki wrapped one arm around him, using the other to push his bangs away from his forehead and kiss him with reassurance. Thinking about it, Tsukki hadn’t initiated any public displays of affection before. He was getting better at this whole boyfriends thing. Sugawara emerged from his hiding spot to interrupt their little moment, having to active his vice captains’ authority for everyone’s best interest based on what he had overheard.

“Yamaguchi, I can’t let you be registered for our squad for nationals.” Sugawara spoke formally, as if he was an officer arresting Yamaguchi when really he was just the bearer of the bad news he already inevitably expected, just not so suddenly.

“Sugawara. How much of that did you hear?” Tsukki scowled at him.

“Enough. Sorry, Yamaguchi. Maybe next time, eh? Chin up. Practice should be close to done, let’s head back, get your stuff and… stop for a treat on the way there because I don’t think anybody’s in a practicing mood right now. Something sugary should boost everyone’s mood.” Sugawara smiled warmly, throwing a hand over each of their shoulders and pulling them in for a moment before loosening his grip and shepherding them in the direction of school.

 

On route to school, whatever place they decided to eat, Sugawara started quietly speaking to Tsukki while Yamaguchi slightly walked ahead, not realising the delayed pace of the two boys behind him.

“So… you two are a couple after all?” Sugawara seemed incredibly reluctant to try and bring it up, as if their previous argument (which had already been established as because of temperamental emotions, not reluctance to be open about their relationship) was a sensitive and touchy subject for them.

“Well, if it wasn’t incredibly clear from you spying on me eventually kissing him for comfort, then yes, we are, and we’re keeping it a secret because Yamaguchi… wants to for some reason, I don’t know. I want to be open about it. Our parents know. You know. People are going to start saying it around school after today. But he seems completely paranoid about anybody knowing something like that. My guess is his childhood bullying was traumatic enough to be completely terrified of being considered ‘different’ again, and expects people to try and bully him if we openly came out as a couple. It’s tragic really. I don’t consider myself the most open and affectionate person, but I’d still like to be able to be proud of my boyfriend publically, you get me?” A simple question turned to Tsukki venting from the heart. Sugawara gave him a look of deep thought, as if he was trying to picture how he can try to help them.

“I’ll talk to Yamaguchi, okay?” Sugawara started walking faster again to catch up with Yamaguchi while leaving Tsukki behind. Tsukki put a hand on Sugawara’s shoulder and shook his head at him.

“Not now. He doesn’t need to be told right now that I’m not happy with how he wants to handle our relationship moving forward. Save it for another time. He’s a little screwed up right now.” Sugawara nodded in agreement as they continued onwards with their return journey.


	27. Harassment

“Faggot”

There it stood in big, black scribbles of a fine tipped permanent marker. Yamaguchi’s locker was defaced for all to see. It was hard to judge if it was the work of one antagonistic student who thought it would be funny to scrawl over his space, or if a group decided to insult him together. What was certain was that word had gotten out and there were some people seemingly taking it worse than others. Tsukki and Yamaguchi had hoped the volleyball team would keep quiet about the scenario, seeing how they had both reacted, but evidently one person couldn’t keep their mouth shut, and now there were several people in the school taking issue. That, or the school security cameras may catch a member of their team betraying them behind their backs and getting caught doing so. Yamaguchi wasn’t sure if he wanted to complain about it, or if he would just try to haplessly clean it up to not cause a problem. A small crowd of girls giggle as the defamation enters their line of sight and gets pointed out to the group, and Yamaguchi only sighs as he walks away, bumping in to Tsukki as he blindly ambles away. Tsukki stands firm as if he had expected Yamaguchi to bump in to him.

“You’re not going to do something about it?” Tsukki glared at the slightly blurred black scribbles before glancing back to Yamaguchi, staring meekly at the floor, letting himself feel ashamed at the inappropriate gesture of whatever vandal was responsible.  Tsukki rolled his eyes. “So you’ll just leave it there and take their shit? Come on. You’ve gotten over far worse bullying before. Just ignore the lazy attempt at an insult from these scum. What grounds do a bunch of hormonal fuckwads who’ve never even touched a girl, let alone loved one, have to insult others love lives? You should tell somebody about it.”

“Right, probably the janitor.” Yamaguchi feigned a smile at Tsukki. Tsukki, after knowing Yamaguchi for so long, could read him like a book. He had ignored everything that Tsukki had said and was going to try to act like the situation never happened, rather than do something about it. It was a fear that was drilled in to him from a young age by bullies, and now Yamaguchi was devolving to the younger self that is afraid to speak up in expectation of things getting worse. Tsukki wondered just how long Yamaguchi had been a ticking time bomb of paranoia that was doing everything in his power to avoid becoming stuck in the tainted state that was his grade school years. The duo began walking towards class while Tsukki quietly reconsidered his relationship with Yamaguchi prior to becoming a couple. At first, Tsukki was the stalwart that protected Yamaguchi from being bullied, but yet, Yamaguchi evidently didn’t feel at all protected. This was the first instance in a very long time that Tsukki had gotten the impression that Yamaguchi was still a scared child afraid of his bullies deep down inside of him, and it killed him to know it.

“Ah, Tsukki, class is this way.” Yamaguchi pointed down the alternate route of the perpendicular corridors, looking a little concerned about the clock running dangerously close to class time.

“We’re going to the principal’s office.” Tsukki didn’t stop walking as he spoke, sternly enough for it to seem like an order to Yamaguchi.

“Tsukki, no, don’t make a big deal out of this.” Yamaguchi stayed put at first before darting off to catch up with Tsukki when it became abundantly clear that he wasn’t stopping.

“Yes, let’s not make a big deal of somebody trying to defacing your property because of an arbitrary reason.” Tsukki knocked on the door of the principal’s office, hearing him say “goodbye” on the other end of the door before footsteps gradually approached, the door opening to see the principal looking sternly at them. They hadn’t had particularly good luck with the principal’s moods in the past, but they were hoping today would be an exception.

“Shouldn’t you two be in class? Remind your teacher of our new policy to not send students to do their bidding.” It bad luck again.

“Sorry, this is somewhat important, if you don’t mind.”

“We’ll get right back to class immediately! Sorry sir!” Yamaguchi started walking away, wrongfully excepting Tsukki to follow him, but of course, he stayed put to argue his case.

“Ignore him.  I wanted to talk to you about a student defacing my friend’s locker with slurs. He doesn’t feel especially safe because of it and I’d like you to check the school security footage so whoever is responsible can be appropriately punished.” Tsukishima looked rather proud of himself for his attempt at communicating with authority. Yamaguchi had brought himself back in shame seeing that Tsukki had held his position.

“Is that so? Show me it.” Tsukishima walked away with the principal and Yamaguchi tagging along. There was an air of the generally stern principal feeling this was a waste of time despite his compliance. Tsukki had envisioned him seeing the defamation of Yamaguchi’s locker, insisting that it wasn’t that bad and that he’ll tell the janitor to wash it off. Instead, the moment his eye caught a glimpse of it, he murmured “despicable” before calling some phone number that they got the impression was whoever was in charge of the schools security, the telling sign being that he had asked them to check out their surveillance footage. Ideally, it would come back with a clear perpetrator. “We take this kind of thing very, very seriously for our student’s safety. If you get harassed any more, let me know.” What a change from his usual character. At least it was nice to have some form of support for their relationship from somebody, or at least in some very small form.

“Can we head back to class now?” Yamaguchi meekly asked. His vision flicked to his watch, they’d already missed half of their first class on this little escapade. Their teacher would probably be content with their excuse, but it wasn’t at the top of Yamaguchi’s to-do list to have to explain in front of the class that he had gone to the principal to deal with his problems. That never went down well in a class of teenagers, especially when you have a deep paranoia of the world being set on making things worse for you if you don’t accept there are people who perceive themselves as better.

“Absolutely. I’ll tell the janitor to clean this up and if I remember, I’ll try to let you know if we’ve found an answer to your little bullying problem.”

 

They didn’t.

 

“Still a fag”

Somebody evidently hadn’t gotten the message from having their original message wiped out that what they were doing wasn’t considered acceptable on the school premise. Yamaguchi sighed as he closed his locker, the same group of people snickering at the message as the previous day, and the same grumpy Tsukishima forcing him down to the principal’s office to try and catch whoever did it. The handwriting looked the same, perhaps it was just a lone wolf and not a group who were trying to make Yamaguchi’s life a little less pleasant. Considering Yamaguchi and Tsukki usually showed up for school rather close to the first bell of the day, it wouldn’t be hugely difficult for somebody to deface his locker without him being there. The issue was how somebody was doing it without anybody being seen. Yamaguchi certainly didn’t want the principal roaming around on a headhunt trying to ask people to come forward and profess their innocence while helping to find those responsible. However, Tsukki wouldn’t back down, and they faced yet another trip to the principal’s office. This eventually led to a secondary trip to the school’s security office, a small, dimly lit room with murky red carpets and several shelves of camera footage. A short, burly man sat inside watching over the footage the principal had instructed him to look at on behalf of Tsukki and Yamaguchi. Despite their best efforts, and having the two boys try to identify whoever showed up on camera, no conclusive name could be chosen. Their school uniform had no telling signs, it was some average sized boy who had decided to cleverly mask himself with a hoodie underneath his blazer, almost as if his attire was that of a taller and more delinquent Hinata.

“Well, if he’s this persistent, we’ll at least be able to get it eventually. I took a picture of it before the janitor dealt with it so I can show it to the faculty and see if they recognize the handwriting as one of their students. Hopefully that will put an end to things at a quicker pace and it should be sorted out quite soon. Unless this is some sort of master criminal with the sleight of hand to change his handwriting on a whim to get away with such heinous crimes as writing homophobic slurs on somebody’s locker, I feel this will be an easy open and shut case for now.” The principal laughed weakly before instructing Yamaguchi and Tsukki to go back to class (with a small reminder not to tell people what’s inside the security lodge so that they can help catch miscreants faster in the future).

“Nationals are tomorrow, are you excited? I hope this isn’t getting to you too hard. I know you can’t really get as excited as you should be when you can’t play, but think of the success of the team and try to ignore the people messing around with you, okay?” Tsukki spoke sternly yet endearingly. Yamaguchi understood where he was coming from, but shaking off years of anxiety and paranoia regarding bullying wasn’t exactly as easy as a “hey cheer up”.

“Sure, Nationals. I’ll be rooting for you from the side-lines… or stands, I’m not sure where I go. Where do I go?” Yamaguchi nervously laughed.

“Stands. They only let substitutes be on the side-lines. That’s okay though. I know you’re going to immediately change personality entirely and be the loudest voice in the stands cheering for Karasuno to go all the way. I wouldn’t expect anything else from our little Braveheart of a pinch server.” A rare warm smile cracked at the corner of Tsukki’s mouth.

“If you say so.” Yamaguchi rolled his eyes but couldn’t stop himself from grinning back.

“I’ll make sure to kill every spike in your name. I’ll make it like a soccer game. Every block, I’ll do a lap around the court pointing to you in the stands in celebration like I’m some superstar on the world stage.”

“Hey, I’m not some fallen soldier. You don’t have to embarrass me like that.”

“Anyway, I think we have separate classes for most of today, so let’s split off and I’ll see you at lunch, then after class, and then tomorrow so you can fall asleep in my lap on the long ride to Nationals.”

“Right.”

 

“FUCK OFF FAG”

Yamaguchi never showed up to see it.


	28. Adventures

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> when will yamaguchi be free

“Everyone take your seats so I can do a head count.” Takeda paced up the isles of the bus, counting the members of the team and the students who were allowed to come to nationals to cheer them on. They had one bus, led by Takeda, and another (full of mostly spectators) led by Coach Ukai.

“Uh, I don’t think…” Tsukki was ignored as Takeda attempted to keep focus tallying up the students.

“I think that’s everyone, the numbers match, okay, let’s go.” Takeda waved at the bus driver who started pulling out of the school gates, as Tsukki darted forward to the front of the bus to quickly speak to Takeda before it was too late.

“Yamaguchi isn’t here.” Tsukki spoke in a panic.

“He’s probably on the other bus because he’s a spectator and not a player. I did the head count and got the right number, and I haven’t heard anything from Ukai yet about a problem, so I believe everything is fine.” Takeda smiled and waved Tsukki back to his seat in the best interest of safety while in motion. Tsukki could only take his word for it, although he had been expecting Yamaguchi to share the bus with him so they would have company of each other on the way to Nationals. It was a reasonably long drive. Tsukki was going to get bored quite quickly. Still, Takeda’s reasoning was solid and if the number of students matched up, who was he to argue? Tsukki pulled out his phone and started texting Yamaguchi just to be certain. He paid little attention to the mumblings at the front of the bus between Takeda and whoever, only forced to care once he stood back up and asked Tsukki if he knew where Yamaguchi was, as they had forgotten him. Tsukki replied with his lack of information, not getting a reply yet to his text, and Takeda not paying much care so that he could talk to the bus driver.

“We’re on the expressway. I can’t turn around now for at least fifteen miles.” The bus driver almost stubbornly informed Takeda without taking his eyes off the road in front of him.

“Have we just passed an exit? Is the bus behind us able to quickly turn around?” Takeda still had Ukai on the other end of the phone at his ear, trying to avoid wasting even the most miniscule amounts of time by moving his phone from his side to his ear.

“Probably not in the amount of time it’d take to warn your other driver.”

“Damn it. Okay, we’ll just have to leave him behind. Ukai, I’ll call the principal and ask if Yamaguchi just missed the bus, or if he called in sick, or whatever the heck is wrong with him.” Takeda hung up before slowly and somewhat solemnly pacing up the bus towards Tsukki, apologizing for not being able to do more to fix the situation. He offered minor comfort in reassuring him that there was nothing he could do about it, rather focused on his phone and not Takeda’s grovelling. Yamaguchi would normally reply to almost any text from Tsukki within a matter of seconds, but minutes past without response. Tsukki was growing concerned, but given the magnitude of the match they were on their way to play, it was best if he could just put it to the back of his mind for now. He heard quiet talking at the front of the bus from Takeda, likely on the other end of the line was the principal, saying that there was no trace of Yamaguchi, and having called his parents, they were under the impression that he had gone to school as normal once they had both left for work, not long before usually Yamaguchi left for school. In the meantime, Yamaguchi never got back to Tsukki. After a good ten minutes, he buried his phone back in to his pocket and laid back, headphones out and listening to music for the rest of the long trip towards Nationals. It was best not to get distracted, but there was one thing about the situation that was incredibly pressing to him. One thing about Yamaguchi’s mysterious disappearance that confused him most of all.

“If all the head counts added up, then who the hell is here that isn’t supposed to be?”

 

Nationals felt a little disjointed. They arrived, poured out of the bus and split up in to spectators and players and moved off to their respective areas, the stands and the locker rooms. Hinata was on the verge of throwing up as usual, Asahi joined in, as did most of the team by the time the atmosphere had set in and nerves ran rampant amongst the team. It seemed to be afflicting just about nobody else in the building. That was a likely side effect of being one of the few underdogs to qualify for Nationals, as most had likely been there before sans some first years and a couple of second years. Tsukki saw Akiteru in the crowd, but no Yamaguchi next to him. It was a disappointment, but if they won in the first round, they would play again tomorrow. It was another chance for Yamaguchi to actually turn up and be able to show support like Tsukki wanted. There were plenty of rooms set up for those schools who weren’t eliminated in the first round to stay in the area overnight for future rounds, so Tsukki wouldn’t be able to return to Miyagi and see Yamaguchi until their eventual elimination. He had to settle for Yamaguchi perhaps showing up the next day. If he heard anything, he wouldn’t be able to act upon it or help in any way other than talking on the other end of the phone, but Yamaguchi wouldn’t even reply to texts, nor even look at them, so there was evidently little chance of that happening.

 

Nationals themselves weren’t as daunting as the team had first anticipated. Their opponent in the first round couldn’t really match the strength of Shiratorizawa or Seijou. They drew themselves against a small team from Kanazawa, champions of the Ishikawa qualifying tournament. They were dispatched in two sets without looking especially at risk. They had a pinch server that missed two of his three serves. It reminded Tsukki of Yamaguchi for all the wrong reasons. He looked nervous and felt bad seeing him cost his team several times on such a grand stage. Tsukki was at least glad that it was the opposition making mistakes that he felt sorry for and not his own team. Once the match was over and the opposition team had said their tearful goodbye to Nationals after just one game, Karasuno dispersed to the locker rooms and then the stands for the rest of the day, watching the remaining teams play off against one another until the draw for the next round of the tournament took place. They were constantly shifting their focus between several matches taking place on the giant multi-court gymnasium, one of several gymnasiums in the complex that were all filled, rushing through the preliminary rounds. On one side of the gymnasium was Nekoma comfortably dismantling a poorly favoured underdog from the rural Tottori prefecture, while on the opposite side of the gym, they watched two teams that were apparently both early favourites clashing in the opening round in a spectacle most people wanted to see. One of the top five aces in the tournament was played for one side, battling against arguably the best blockers. It made the usually tense Nekoma game an afterthought to most. Even the Nekoma fans were distracted. Hinata and Kageyama both intently stared at Kenma the entire time. Tsukki was still trying to text Yamaguchi, but still to no response. Takeda came down the isle of the stands to talk to Tsukki, trying to raise his usual quiet tone of voice above the loud shouting and cheering in the gymnasium.

“It’s okay. Yamaguchi’s parents have called the school and said Yamaguchi is just sick at home.” Takeda smiled, expecting relief on Tsukishima’s face, but it never came through.

“Will he be able to show up for any of our other games?”

“I couldn’t tell you that, sorry.” Takeda went back to his seat and began chatting with Ukai over some technical sounding matters regarding team training and organisation. Tsukki began to become concerned rather than comforted by the knowledge that Yamaguchi was sick. It must have been really bad for him to be completely and utterly out of action, so much so that he wouldn’t even check his phone to respond to the frenetically charged texts Tsukki had been sending out all day. Tsukki wondered how Yamaguchi’s parents went to work without them noticing Yamaguchi was in that bad of a state. Surely he would have been in the bathroom throwing up or asking his parents to help treat him rather than stay at home and suffer. He was always awake by the time his parents left the house. It didn’t make much sense. Maybe his phone was broken, or had no signal, or had used up his allowances. Regardless, he had to put it to the back of his mind as he heard the final whistle of the hotly contested game taking place on the court, and the gymnasium PA systems announcing for all teams to make their way to the main gymnasium for the next round’s bracket draw.

 

“Are you excited?” Suga turned to Tsukki. “We’re down to 32 teams. We’re 5 wins away from being champions. Even if we don’t, we could still play Nekoma or Fukurodani. Or one of the top teams from Osaka or Saitama.” He had a broad grin on his face, evidently sucking up all of the atmosphere of being at Nationals for his final tournament as a high schooler. Tsukki seemed less fazed by it.

“Nervous.” Tsukki was vague enough for it to sound like it was about the draw and not Yamaguchi’s wellbeing.

“Well, we’ve got one game down, everything else from he-“

“If I can have your attention please.” A deep male voice filled the gymnasium, bellowing through the room via microphone.

“Well, you know what I was going to say, time for the draw.” Suga’s focus went to the main stage where two men and a woman had a stage with a podium, computer, projector screen with an empty tournament bracket and a tumbler full of team names.

“We’ll now begin the draw for the final bracket of the Nationals tournament. These draws will be final once reviewed by our adjudicator. We’ll start with the first team in bracket A, then I, B, J and so on down to the second team in the P bracket. Let’s draw the first team to be drawn is…” The group draw went on for several minutes. By the time the first team in each of the 16 brackets had been drawn, there were still many big names not placed on the board. Nekoma had been put in the G bracket, and Karasuno were eagerly anticipating the draw returning to it so they could be placed there.

“And now the 13th team remaining will be drawn with Nekoma high school. Let’s see who takes the unlucky number…” The woman manning the tumbler pulled out another plastic capsule and opened it, revealing the name to the man running the podium.

“Come on, please be us, please be us,” Daichi muttered under his breath. The rest of the team had their fingers crossed, hoping they get their battle of the garbage dump at Nationals before the third years were sent off.

“Fukurodani Academy from Tokyo!”

“Shit.”

“Hell yeah!” The crowd turned to the focus of the noise, the familiar voice of Bokuto Koutarou shouting out of line in the gymnasium. Everyone returned to focusing on the group draw.

“And in bracket H, where the winner will be facing the winner of Fukurodani versus Nekoma…” The woman pulled another capsule out of the tumbler. “Facing Honoka Gakuen from the Yamaguchi prefecture is… Karasuno High School from Miyagi!” Tsukki rolled his eyes. Of all the teams they could have been playing, they get drawn against the one from the prefecture named after his at present troubled boyfriend.

 

“Oh for fucks sake.”


	29. Competition

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> why did i get myself in so deep i had to make an OC haikyuu volleyball team

 “Yamaguchi. Ha. What a coincidence, huh?” Sugawara smiled at Tsukki in particular as the team huddled around to discuss their upcoming game. “They’re not really one of the ‘good’ teams still in it at this stage. We can very much take them head on and come out of this. Still, it’s best to not get overconfident, and it’s best to give it 110% regardless of who we’re facing. If they made it this far, they have to be at least somewhat of a threat, right? We’re still the plucky underdogs here, so we have to prove the doubters wrong!”

“Did he just say we’re the favourites and the underdogs at the same time?” Tanaka muttered towards Noya who looked equally as perplexed by Sugawara’s motivational speech as the rest of the open forum that was the Karasuno team.

“I haven’t got any clue whatsoever. All I know is I’ve never heard of them, which probably means they suck.” Noya smirked. Sugawara scolded him for his perceived complacency.

“Regardless of whether or not they’re a strong opponent, we don’t have time or space to practice before tomorrow’s game. The very best we can do is analyse their game plan and go at it with all we’ve got.” Daichi took his captaincy duties in his stride as he laid out the blueprints for how they would approach this game, analysing every last detail of the opposition with Ukai and Takeda, the latter of which had created summary notes of every team who had made it to the competition based on word of mouth or other scouting reports that made the team wonder where he obtained such information. The brief summary of their opponents, Honoka Gakuen, was the be especially watchful of libero, a member of the Japanese youth team, and his link up play with their setter, one of the top five at the tournament for quick counter attacks. That was generally their only real strength, as the players surrounding the two exceptional talents weren’t particularly great, and it often lead to Honoka having very close and very fast matches with high intensity levels throughout. The deciding factor, of course, usually being the critical recoveries made by their libero talent. Ukai particularly called upon Tsukki’s blocking to try and stop the one true strength of their opponent, using his quick reflexes and his height to shut them down and allow Karasuno to respond equally as quickly and overwhelm their libero. It was a solid game plan, one that would work a lot better if Tsukki wasn’t feeling so completely and utterly preoccupied by the mysterious circumstance around Yamaguchi’s ‘sickness’.

“If we come out of this alive, which I’m confident we can, we get rewarded with Nekoma or Fukurodani. Probably Fukurodani, but it could be either of them, so we have to be on our toes. We could get the game we came here to play out of this, so give it your all and make sure you don’t come out of it knowing you could have pushed harder. Karsuno… Fight!” Daichi signed the team speech off with their usual motivational signal of their unity. It was going to be one hell of a fight, and one that everyone seemed up for, except for Tsukki, with good reason. Nobody could pick up on it given how usually unenthused Tsukki appeared for the team’s speeches and so forth. His concerns were generally kept to himself.

 

“Text me as soon as you’re feeling better.” Tsukki signed off his voicemail message, thinking Yamaguchi would enjoy the sounds of Tsukki’s voice when he wasn’t feeling at his best. It was warmer than a simple text message, and he hoped it would make Yamaguchi want to call him back a lot faster, but his text messages from earlier in the day weren’t even showing up as seen, let alone replied to. Tsukki was obviously concerned, messing around with his phone long after half the team had slept and the other half were on their way out. Chances were he’d be the last one in their room up, but of all the people to come and scooch up next to him and see what was wrong, Hinata had decided to offer his assistance. It was a strange difference from the usual Sugawara or Daichi comforting.

“Your grumpy face looks less grumpy and more scared. What’s up?” Hinata was blunt and to the point.

“I’m very tired and going to bed.”

“You can’t just go to bed right after trying to call somebody. Something’s up. You look bugged.” Hinata was surprisingly observant. Tsukki didn’t expect Hinata to see past his bullshitting.

“Yamaguchi’s not sick. I don’t believe him. I’m trying to get to the bottom of it, but he seems to have disappeared off the face of the earth to everyone but his parents, and I don’t know how that’s possible. I even texted his mom and she just said he was locked away in his room, not wanting to come out, just trying to sleep his way through it. Things don’t add up though. His parents didn’t realise he was too sick to even get out of bed this morning, how does that make sense? How can parents miss that their son that they see every single morning and drive to school is too sick to get out of bed when they went to work? You don’t just forget that. The principal said their parents thought he was going to go to school on his own. Why though? He always gets a ride from his mom. Always. She would notice, right? But she didn’t. Did she forget and coincidentally it’s the day he’s sick? None of this is right.”

“Woah okay that was a lot of, uh… I don’t even know what to say to that.” Hinata was dumbfounded by the conspiracy ramblings coming out of Tsukki’s mouth. It was long and confusing and Hinata couldn’t make sense of it, but he just let Tsukki keep talking because that was probably better for him than trying to deal with everything by himself.

“He doesn’t reply to me so he has to be really, really bad to ignore me. Me. He’s ignoring me. We’re dating and he’s ignore me. His boyfriend. How bad does he have to be to ignore his boyfriend? But his parents forgot him and he’s ignoring his boyfriend because he’s so sick. Are his parents just bad parents? None of this makes any god damn sense Hinata. I don’t know what to do.”

“Sleep.” Hinata quietly replied.

“What?” Tsukki’s understandable confusion came from Hinata so succinctly replying to his long speeches of concern.

“Take your mind of it. Sleep. Be fit and fresh for the next game. Maybe by morning he’ll feel better and reply to you.” Hinata smiled. He thought he was giving the best advice in the world and was proud of himself for it.

“You know what, yeah, that’s a good idea, if he’s sick there’s no way he’d be up at midnight reading texts. You’re right. I should go to sleep and deal with it tomorrow because there’s no way he’s going to say anything tonight. Thanks, Hinata. That was surprisingly helpful for a usually airheaded shrimp.” Tsukki smirked cheekily. He was being playful but of course, Hinata replied with frustration. Tsukki shooed him off, knowing it was a mere joke before picking up his phone again, texting Yamaguchi a goodnight message and sleeping.

 

“Opened: 08:32am”

It was something. There was no reply, but at least now Yamaguchi had read the message. It was 8:45am as the alarm went off, waking up the dorm room and bringing the team to life, buzzing with excitement with those who awoke early and filling up with those arising from their slumber. Tsukki had figured he was early enough to text Yamaguchi and have him still be around and messing with his phone, so he sent him another message. A simple good morning, asking how he was doing. No immediate response, and by the time the team was ready to head down to the gymnasium for the match, there was still no response. He assumed he was either better and in class, or glanced at his phone upon waking up and immediately passed out again. Either solution made sense. Maybe he was on his way here. That was another reasonable but probably not true scenario.

 

“Takeda, can I ask you something?” Tsukki had moved on to the breakfast buffet that was trying to cater to the 32 remaining teams in the tournament at once. Takeda meekly ate while listening in to Ukai chatting with another teams coach over some mutual interest he couldn’t make head or tail of the technical terminology for.

“Morning, Tsukishima. Go for it.” He seemed a little on edge. The stress of being advisor for a team going this far was probably getting to him, given that his reputation in the school would be greatly helped by how well Karasuno did, and the excitement of being revered by his peers was evidently having an effect.

“Right. Can you find out if Yamaguchi is back in school today? He’s still not talked to me. It’d be nice to know what’s up, and I’d figure the school would be a little concerned given how weird the circumstance behind him being absent are.” Tsukki seemed to get desperate every time he brought up his concerns for Yamaguchi.

“What are you talking about? They just said he’s sick. Are you okay? I guess you’re worried and stressed because of the match. Calm down. It’s fine.”

“Can you check?” Takeda rolled his eyes and shooed Tsukki off, saying he’d check with the school once he was done trying to enjoy his breakfast.

 

The order of matches played were alternating with each block. A, C, E and G played at once, then I, K, M, O, returning back to B and repeating the cycle. This meant that Karasuno had the chance to watch the Nekoma versus Fukurodani game which was played two matches before their own. It was a nice, easy-going start. They could do their warm ups and get mentally prepared once it was over, knowing who they would face in the next round. The overwhelming favourites were Fukurodani given how rarely Nekoma could one-up their Tokyo counterparts, and in the first set, it seemed as such. They were all over them. Nekoma were out of their usual rhythm. The team was contemplating how they could overcome Fukurodani in such peak form rather than entertaining the idea of a comeback, or focusing on their own match coming up. Ukai scolded them for doing as such. Tsukishima passed time idly on his phone, still trying to no avail to get a response.

“Tsukishima. Yamaguchi’s still not in school. His parents say he seems better but said he doesn’t feel 100% to come in to school today.” Takeda had his hand on Tsukki’s shoulder as he told him the ‘good’ news. He still hadn’t responded to any of his messages. The school bus full of team supporters showed up, but of course, he wasn’t among them. At least if he was supposedly feeling better, there was a good chance he could show up for the next game, as there was a weekend break between the second and third rounds, resuming Nationals on Monday (after all, it’d be unfair to ask high schoolers to play so many games in so many consecutive days. A break was necessary). A sudden rapture of cheering and applause interrupted their discussion.

“What happened? What did I miss?” Tsukishima looked around in confusion to see Nekoma celebrating and Fukurodani collapsed on to the ground in exhaustion and dismay. They had turned it around and won. The battle of the garbage dump was set up for the third round, one of them making their way to the quarter finals of Nationals.

“Lev scored the winning spike. Who the hell could say they saw that one coming?” Daichi sighed then chuckled at the absurdity of the situation. Tsukki caught a glimpse of Kuroo pointing two fingers at his eyes, then at Karasuno in the stands, signalling that they were next. There was expectation and both sides wanted to meet it. In the meantime, there was still one thing standing in their way. Their next opponents, the team from the Yamaguchi prefecture that kept making Tsukki lose focus when he thinks about facing them, Honoka Gakuen. The team made their way to the back where they could warm up as the next round of games took place, their next battle taking place in less than an hour. Just as they were beginning to find their rhythm Tsukki felt his phone vibrate in his pocket. He pulled it out to glimpse at the text on the screen.

“Sorry I let you down, Kei.”

“Of all the fucking things he could have said…”


	30. Investigation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, I've been going through a lot of writers block lately. I'll try to write more actively again.

A lot of thoughts were running through Tsukki’s head. “Sorry. How can he have the audacity to spend all this time powerlessly sick, and then apologize as if it’s his fault? How damn frustrating. And letting me down? How can I be let down when he’s going to come back in time for our next game if we win anyway? It’s not like we lost in his absence.” It was an issue. An issue that was distracting him at the worst possible time. He needed to join his team on focusing on the upcoming match, and yet here he was, relishing in the prospect of being able to talk to Yamaguchi yet distracted and concerned by the nonsensical apology on the screen before him. He figured the best course of action would be to reply. At least Yamaguchi was alive and kicking.

“It’s ok. Feeling better? Can’t wait for you to be here tomorrow.” Tsukki’s texting was formal as usual and he waited patiently as they began their warm ups for a response, anticipating the buzzing of his phone from his bag. It didn’t come.

 

The two teams made their way out on to the court for the round of 32 match. The team names were called by an announcer keeping the event formal. Tsukki winced as he remembered thanks to this announcer that his opponents were from the Yamaguchi prefecture, and he still hadn’t received word back from Yamaguchi. Regardless, he had a job to do and that was to battle his way to the next round of nationals and be in the top 16 teams in the country.

“Don’t mind, Tsukishima. You’ll get the next one.” Tsukki found the opposition spiker easily bypassing him. Again. He was jumping just fine. He was putting effort in to it. He just couldn’t read the game as efficiently as usual with his predisposition to thinking about what the hell was wrong with Yamaguchi.

“Nice kill!” Daichi congratulated the team for getting the points back. Tsukishima idly mumbled his own contribution of thanks to the team celebrating in unison. They had picked up the first set after coming from behind. Daichi pulled Tsukishima aside in the brief intermission to give him a pep talk and try and get his mind back on track. He was obviously taken aback by how difficult it was to play with his mind clouded with concern and it shone through to Daichi’s captain’s instinct.

“You’ll… get the next one, Tsukishima.”  Sugawara feigned a smile at Tsukki while Daichi shook his head at Sugawara. Tsukishima went out, Narita went in, and that was the last role in the game that Tsukishima had as they were tied 1-1 with one more to play.

 

Tsukishima was quick to vent his frustrations in the locker room, despite the instruction to stay on the bench once being taken out of the game. The sound of him punching a locker struck through the empty room, sitting in silence as the last group to play and the only person sent back there, a myriad of disappointed thoughts mixing in with his anger and frustration at the Yamaguchi situation. He couldn’t focus and he was suffering for it. Yamaguchi busted his ass off to be able to play at Nationals, and he couldn’t, and yet here Tsukishima was, taking it for granted and playing suboptimally just because he was a little bit concerned. He hated himself for it, and yet couldn’t control the desire to check his phone again and see if Yamaguchi had replied over the course of the half hour he was out on the court. Instead, his anger left him fully seething once he checked and saw no response, not even a ‘message read’.

“Fuck this.” Tsukishima threw his phone against the wall where it landed neatly on top of his bag, with surprisingly little damage dealt to it. The intrusive thoughts telling him the worst was happening were struggling against the sounds of cheering followed by Karasuno’s team charging back in to the locker room in delight, taking the match and heading to the final 16 to face Nekoma. It was the dream match and Tsukishima was probably not even going to be playing it because of his situation, and he mostly had his own protective, overly-caring treatment of Yamaguchi to blame. That, and how devoid of information he was in regard to whatever situation was going on. The team tried to get Tsukishima to join in the celebrations, but seeing his sullen mood they instead opted to just let him be there as they jostled each other in excitement, eventually, once fully changed, getting back on the bus home for a well-earned weekend break. They would be returning to the gymnasium for their key match once rested. Tsukishima, instead of joining the team in their venture to some restaurant to celebrate (paid for by a very proud Ukai and Takeda, revelling in the boost to their reputations that would certainly followed), opted to immediately charge to Yamaguchi’s house.

 

“Has Yamaguchi talked to you since you left for work this morning? I can’t get through to him.” Tsukishima nervously dealt with Yamaguchi’s parents instead of Yamaguchi himself given he was being totally ignored.

“No. Is something the matter?”

“I just told you I can’t get through to him.”

“Okay, relax, don’t get mad at me, he’s probably just still feeling being sick.”

“Okay, thanks.” Tsukishima rudely hung up without letting them get in a goodbye, ignoring the fact that he was absolutely convinced that Yamaguchi wasn’t sick. It didn’t make sense and he knew it. He constantly ran the scenarios through his mind and none of them were sensible to include sickness. It didn’t help that he got his ‘apology’ message from Yamaguchi and zero response since. Tsukishima picked up his walking pace. ‘ _Sorry I let you down, Kei_.’ He walked faster. “What the hell would he say that for and then ignore me?” He started running. He had a terrible thought stuck in the back of his head and his seemingly nonsensical ‘sickness’ fitted the bill. He darted through the streets, twisting and turning through them, adrenaline rushing through his veins as he decided to try and surpass the intensity of any cardio training at practice. He had the same sense of impending doom the night of Yamaguchi’s accident, and given that his suspicions were right in that scenario, he had every reason to believe he was on the right track this time. After all, Tsukki was an intuitive boy. It was his key skill on the court and it was one that he used just as frequently off it.

 

He arrived at the door of Yamaguchi’s house, slamming his fists against it to try and get Yamaguchi’s attention. Of course, his parents were home, it was just the ‘sick’ Yamaguchi. He saw that his window was open so he shouted to hopefully get Yamaguchi’s attention, but there was still no response whatsoever. He considered it in his best interests to let himself in. After all, they were dating now, it would be expected that he would be allowed in to his boyfriends place. He didn’t really need to knock, he was just being polite. In the meantime, politeness was less of an issue as he went from barraging the front door with his fists to slamming it open before being somewhat disturbed by the eerie silence in the house. All the lights were off downstairs. Tsukishima made sure to call out once more to try and get his attention, but the obvious plan was to slowly clamber up the stairs to the landing, seeing a crack of light at the base of the door to Yamaguchi’s room. The silence was unnerving aside from an occasional strange clicking sound coming from the other end of the door. He again, softly this time, called Yamaguchi’s name as he stood outside the door to make sure that he was in there and able to hear him.

“I’m coming in.” Tsukishima muttered as he slowly teased open the door, the sudden change in light intensity blinding him before regaining the clarity of his vision, focusing to see in to the room, and most importantly, to see Yamaguchi.

“Oh my god…”


	31. Advancing

“Are you fucking kidding me, Tadashi? You put me through all of this stress and you’re sitting at your fucking laptop just casually playing games? What happened to being sick? Why have you been ignoring me? What the hell is going on with you? Answer me!” Tsukishima was all but screaming at Yamaguchi which made him turn around to investigate the source of the sound over the loud music blaring through his headphones. Yamaguchi screamed at the sudden presence of a body in his room.

“Tsukki! Kei! Fuck! How did you get in here? Why are you here? You’re meant to be at Nationals!” Yamaguchi spoke in a panic as his heart raced turbulently, settling once he realised he was safe and sound.

“Well, if you weren’t ignoring me, you’d know why I’m here and not at Nationals. We won. We’re playing Nekoma in the round of 16, and-“ Yamaguchi cut him off.

“That’s great, TsukkI!”

“Shut up. Let me speak.” Yamaguchi was somewhat taken aback at the touch of venom in Tsukishima’s voice. “What the hell are you doing? Stop avoiding the issue. Why ignore me? Why pretend to be sick? Look at you, you’re fine. And your parents wouldn’t be leaving you alone if you were too on the verge of death to be able to talk to me.” Yamaguchi fell silent instead of responding. Tsukishima rolled his eyes, raising his voice louder and startling Yamaguchi. “I’m just trying to help, what’s wrong? Why are you ignoring me? Just tell me!”

 

“I am sick.” A solemn tone of voice filled the room. “Mentally.” Tsukishima was stunned silent by Yamaguchi’s response. He glared at Tsukishima with tears in forming at the corners of his eyes. “Doesn’t it bother you, Kei? That the school hates you and hates me and it’s just because we’re dating? How can I go to school and be expected to put up with that? I can’t. I just can’t do it. I can’t do it and it’s because I’m a weak person. What do you even see in me?”

“Yamaguchi.”

“I’m unattractive, I’m annoying, I’m an easy target to people”

“Yamaguchi…”

“People obviously don’t want me in the school because of all the things people keep writing on my locker every single day.”

“Tadashi!” Tsukishima had to raise his voice again, and again startling Yamaguchi. “That’s one asshole. You literally saw the security footage of it being one asshole covering his face. Nobody else has said anything. Nobody else has done anything. He did it three times. Come on! You can’t shut yourself off from the world because of one fucker trying to make your life miserable because he’s out of date with the world when your entire team has been supportive. Your actions have consequences, come on, I’m sorry to act like it’s nothing, but you need to get over it. You’re overreacting massively.”

“But this is what it’s always like! One person does it so other people think it’s cool and they join in and I know because it happened before and it’s happening again!” Yamaguchi wiped tears off his cheeks.

“Who protected you last time?” Tsukki’s tone of voice had calmed to sternness.

“But…”

“Who made everyone leave you alone?”

“…”

“Who has a team of people who support him and aren’t going to let anyone give him shit?”

“I do.”

“So why are you cooped up in here, skipping a few days’ worth of classes, the biggest volleyball games we might ever play, when you know that I’m going to do everything that I can to make life easier for you?” Yamaguchi fell silent yet again. “Answer me, Tadashi.”

 

“I’m sorry.” Yamaguchi quickly bundled himself in to Tsukishima’s arms and burying his teary-eyed face in his chest, blubbering out something incoherent as Tsukishima just sat there, allowing him to nonsensically vent out whatever was muddling up his thoughts. It was evidently clear he was still somewhat traumatized by his childhood experiences, and his anxiety had never really gone away, but he had never put much thought until now just how much Tsukki cared for him. He hadn’t been confronted with how his actions were causing the people who really did passionately care for him to become concerned, and their lives affected by it. He obviously couldn’t just suddenly change his mentality on the spot. There was too much scar tissue imprinted in him to shrug it off that easily. He could, however, thanks to the stark realisation of just how protected he was, slowly try to become more accustomed to handling the hardships of life and not act so rashly and so drastically over one incident attacking his freedoms.

“Can I count on you to be at Monday’s game?”

“Yeah. Yeah you can. Thanks, Tsukki!” Yamaguchi’s smile, despite the wetness on his cheeks, was still as endearing as ever and was reassuring to Tsukishima that he had sorted out the issue. The worst was behind him and they could continue on as normal, no more drama, or at least, a lot less drama.

* * *

“Yamaguchi! You’re back! Feeling better now?”

“We were worried you know.” Daichi and Sugawara showed their usual seniors concern for their juniors. “What was wrong? Put you out of commission longer than we expected. Are you feeling okay?”

“Ah…” Yamaguchi of course didn’t want to give the actual reason for why he had taken his leave of absence, but Tsukki gave him a small nod as he glanced at him, signalling that it was okay if he didn’t tell. He would be better off just fabricating the store. “Just a really bad stomach bug or something. I’m a lot better now! Thank you!” Yamaguchi shuffled in to the window seat at the front row of the bus. Tsukishima sat himself down next to him a Sugawara got up, not happy that Yamaguchi had so quickly ended the discussion before he had to say what he wanted.

“I was asking if you’re feeling okay now for a reason, you know. This is… a little bit awkward but… Well, to put it in the simplest way I can, Tanaka got suspended and we’re allowed to register a replacement in our squad, so… if by now you’re feeling okay, we sorta have to put you on the bench or else we’re down a man. I know you don’t have any of your kit with you, but we have backups you can use!” Sugawara seemed like he had been beaten by Yamaguchi given he was the one who suspended him from the squad in the first place, and now, no more than a week later, he was asking him to re-join it, evidently content with his recovery time by taking time off for ‘sickness’.

“Tanaka got suspended!?”

“Yeah. For fighting. Anyway, do you think you’re fit enough to play?”

“Yeah I am! I can do that! Thank you so much, Sugawara-senpai!” Yamaguchi was bouncing in his seat in excitement. Things really were on the up for him. Neither Sugawara, nor Tsukki, wanted to tell Yamaguchi that Tanaka had been suspended for kicking the ever-loving shit out of the person they eventually caught defacing Yamaguchi’s locker. It was obvious that Yamaguchi would respond with feeling he had undeservedly taken the spot of a better player. They could tell him later, or never, whatever worked. It was best to not ruin his moment. He was excited and had every right to be. There was even the faint chance that he could make a contribution to the battle of the garbage dump. He briefly remembered that he and Tsukki had promised to grant each other one request if Yamaguchi scored a point at Nationals, and then the excitement returned, so much so that he was on the brink of throwing up his nerves in the same way Hinata so often did. Sugawara threw a plastic bag at him from the seat behind and the bus went on its way back to the gymnasium for their round of sixteen showdown with Nekoma.

* * *

“Good luck, Sawamura-kun.” Kuroo shook hands with the opposition captain before the game began. Both of them seemed to feign a politeness that would disappear once they got on to the court with their friendly yet intense rivalry. Yamaguchi, of course, was enjoying cheerleading duty with Sugawara on the side-lines as Tsukishima had returned to his usual starting berth in the squad. Tanaka had been replaced with Ennoshita for the rest of the tournament. 

The match itself started strongly for Karasuno. They won the first set 25-22 and had found themselves leading 23-22 in the second before what was arguably the worst thing that could happen to the team did indeed happen, Kageyama and Ennoshita bundled in to each other trying to deal with Kenma’s dump shot. The result was a clash of heads and Kageyama ending up on the ground with a sprained wrist, forced off for the rest of the match, making way for Sugawara, while Ennoshita had to take a trip to the sidelines as Kinoshita took his place. Their team seemed to be shrinking rapidly, their court now consisting of Sugawara, Asahi, Kinoshita, Hinata, Tsukishima, Daichi and Nishinoya (the latter rotating with Tsukishima) with only Yamaguchi, Narita and a somewhat dazed and still slightly bloodied Ennoshita. They weren’t in much of a position to succumb to any more injuries to the team, and the change in line-up threw off Karasuno’s tempo, eventually blowing the second set 23-25. The third was riddled with bad decisions at first before team cohesion (and a lack of using the dwindling bench) helped finally give them the victory they had been craving for so long over Nekoma. 

A quarter final berth awaited, and Karasuno found themselves three games away from being nationals champions. They were to face the winners of the E-F bracket, the game contested just moments before their own. The realisation didn’t set in immediately that they had been drawn to play their quarter final against Itachiyama High, the champions of the Tokyo representative tournament who had already beaten both Nohebi and Fukurodani on their way to qualify, and very easily dispatched their opponents so far during Nationals. Nobody had time to consider that they had been drawn against one of the top 3 aces in the country at a youth level, somebody who would be playing at a level supposedly even higher than their already strong opponents such as Ushijima or Bokuto. Not a word was spoken about how there was a next to zero chance of Karasuno making it to the semi-finals. The team was a little too busy being caught up in their own elation to consider the next match, and rightly so. They had, after all, just won a derby match, the one match they all wanted more than anything going to Nationals. And besides, being in the top eight in the country was nothing to feel bad about even if they did lose. Especially if it was against the overwhelming favourites to win the tournament. Hell, if Itachiyama did win the tournament and Karasuno put on a better show than the finalists, they’d probably be bragging about how by proxy they were the 2nd best team in the country, and would have made it further if not being wiped out by the best earlier on. 

The only problem was whether or not they actually stood a chance of being competitive. They had no Tanaka, their backup ace on the rare chance Asahi were to be unable to play. They had no Kageyama, the team’s centrepiece, their talisman, the person whose pinpoint sets even got them this far in the first place. Sure, Sugawara was good, but he wasn’t Kageyama. On top of that, their number one backup in Ennoshita was out of commission once the team eventually took him to the doctors and saw the clash of heads with Kageyama had giving him a mild concussion. Yamaguchi was still a little fragile and not expected to do well. Kinoshita and Narita were simply not good enough to perform at a top eight in the country level. They may have been along for the ride, but an embarrassing loss at that level would definitely be disheartening going forward, especially for the first and second years who it would leave a lasting impression on. That, and it would be a particularly awful send-off for the third years. Still, none of this was a priority to the team, all of which (bar one) were thinking about how they were going to treat themselves to a team celebratory dinner (funded by Ukai, of course). The one who wasn’t was Tsukishima. Tsukishima had much more deep and complex thoughts running around in his head. Tsukishima was already thinking ahead to the next match, because that was the priority for him. Not the celebrations, it was their next opponent on their path to greatness. Such worrisome thoughts were flowing through his head anticipating the clash. His main concern summed up in one succinct thought that he couldn’t shake from his head.

“This is the second ‘Yama’ team we’ve had to play. Why is Nationals like this?”


	32. Last Stands

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the 6 week hiatus. But I wrote 3 other fics in that time!  
> Next chapter is the final one. I hope you're ready for the grand finale.

“Itachiyama are supposed to destroy us, you know.” Daichi quipped to Sugawara on the bus to the match. He wasn’t intending on the entire team to be listening in, but unfortunately the nerves that had stricken every member of the team on the bus, the players, the wounded who would be sitting on the bench to watch the match, everyone. Kageyama, Ennoshita, Tanaka (back from suspension but still kicked out of the team sheet) and Yamaguchi (able to play but only as the teams last resort) had all been just as choked up waiting to watch their teammates play what would be their toughest battle, either the start of a grand era, or the last they would play on the great stage.

“So was Shiratorizawa. And even Seijou back in the day. You sound awfully pessimistic. It’s not like you.” With great concern, of course, Sugawara had to enquire as to why Daichi would say something so off character.

“I know. I know, everyone was supposed to beat us, we were underdogs, yadda yadda. So far we keep on winning, so there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to keep on winning, right?”

“Right.”

“Wrong. Not even Shiratorizawa was as good as they are. Their ace, Sakusa, the top ace in the country, right? His team destroyed Fukurodani, who in turn not too long ago destroyed us. Hell, they barely lost to Nekoma who we barely beat. We struggled against teams who would get destroyed by this team.”

“You haven’t actually done anything to comfort me about why you’re so pessimistic about this.” Sugawara was right. Daichi seemed to be an endless ball of doom and gloom without any positive outlook. Given his usual cheery nature, this was unprecedented. Just about any other school would be delighted to be in the top 8 in the entire country, and yet, Daichi was sitting on the bus, whining and complaining about how they were about to get completely destroyed. Sugawara noticed a tear stream down Daichi’s face, and his now very misty eyes trying to avoid eye contact with him as he spoke, strained and stuttering slightly.

“Us third years. Our last match in high school is going to be getting completely and utterly humiliated by the team who is probably going to win the tournament. Sure, it’s expected, everyone thinks it, and I know, and you know, and we all know it’s going to happen. Our grand memory of going to nationals is we made it to the top eight… and then we got embarrassed.”

“There’s no way we get embarrassed!” Hinata screamed out from the back of the bus, Daichi made to realise that everyone was listening in to his impassioned (for all the wrong reasons) speech. “We’re going to make our senpai’s go out of high school with the biggest bang imaginable!”

“Yeah! What Hinata said!” Noya realised he need to make his own contribution rather than just ‘yeah I agree’. “Look, you third years, you’ve been through a lot together, probably a ton, I mean, I’ve been through a lot together with you guys and I’m a year below you, so you’ve probably been through so much more!” Noya was not especially succinct or eloquent in his improvised speech. Speaking wasn’t his strong point, or at least, speaking in a way that would rally the troops on to success. Yet still, the team seemed fired up. “How the hell can you be giving up before the match even starts?”

“Okay.” Daichi smirked at the naivety that the team were showing. He didn’t want to argue with them, in his mind, he knew exactly what was coming, but he wasn’t going to argue with the team over it when they’d made an attempt to boost the morale of all around them. They were playing the best school with the best players and the best track record in the tournament, destroying all in their wake, and just about nobody had even come close to putting a scratch on their record, and the perennial underdogs of Karasuno were plucky enough to believe they had a chance. Daichi had seen the end of every tragic underdog story ever told in his teammates, but he was going to at least let them give it their all. His only hope was that they wouldn’t be too disheartened when he was proven right.

 

The team tumbled out of the bus and in to the entrance to the gymnasium to check in for their quarter final. They greeted a lady at the desk who sent them to their locker room area. The quarter finals were all played in one court, one after another, then a break, semi-finals, break, final, and one team would be determined as the best high school team in Japan. Karasuno’s block meant they were playing in game number two of the day, just before lunch. They only had to wait for one game to commence until they got on to the court and could quell their nerves with action. Those team members who were not allowed to play in the game were sent off to the stands while the rest of the team set up shop in the locker room, getting stretches ready, changing in to uniforms and working out the details with the organizers on how they could get on to one of the other courts for some warm up practice.

 

“Don’t you think it’s weird that after absolutely everything, you still technically have a chance to play?” Tsukishima was dwelling on the near impossible to fulfil promise he had made Yamaguchi, that if he hits a jump float serve at Nationals that they would both grant each other one wish of their choosing.  “In fact, if we win this, there’s a possibility that you could even score the winning point in the final, should we make it that far. Don’t you think that’s weird? You were quite literally on deaths door a few months ago, and yet here we are.” Tsukishima’s fascination with the novel or movie-like story of Yamaguchi’s road to recovery was merited, given just how outlandish the entire thing was once some thought was put in to it. Nobody should be in Yamaguchi’s situation right now. And yet he was even eligible for this match if somebody were to get hurt. Their bench was barely 3 men strong at this point. They might need a wildcard if things are as bad as Daichi says they were.

“I don’t know about weird. Terrifying maybe. Is this my true power?” Yamaguchi put on a silly voice trying to lighten up the mood and act like he was coming straight out of an anime. He seemed to be the only person who didn’t have a single fear or worry on his mind. There was an air of freedom around him, as if he was able to enjoy himself without consequence by sitting on the bench, knowing he probably wouldn’t get picked, and knowing that he was just happy to be along for the ride. He appreciated that he still had three or four more chances to make the biannual National tournament. He was just happy to be cheering the team on.

“No, be serious for a second. It’s incredible. You’re incredible.” Tsukki got caught up in his train of thought, pausing for a moment while Yamaguchi blushed at the out of the blue compliment, not realising there was more to come, only Tsukki hadn’t managed to get it out of his system yet. The silence extended, awkwardness prevailed. Tsukki gave up on whatever point he was trying to make and moved on to the more pressing matters at hand. “Anyway, regardless of all that, aren’t you going to join us in warming up? You are allowed to you know.”

“I think a meteorite would have to strike the court and crush the rest of the team before they’d let me play. I’m really happy to just be enjoying myself here.” The usual defeatist attitude in Yamaguchi was not even remotely surprising for Tsukishima, but he was still pushing the narrative that there was some way that Yamaguchi would get a chance to play, whether it be thinking Itachiyama would destroy them so hard that they’d have to bring on substitutions, or the still present belief that they could overcome the titanic opponent before them and make it to a later round where perhaps it would be Yamaguchi’s time to shine.

“Well how are you going to be fit to play when that meteor hits. Come on, I’ll help you stretch. Lay down.”

“You just want to touch my thighs.”

“I am not willing to comment on whether or not I want to touch your thighs right now, Tadashi, but I would at least like to help you be able to play volleyball again.” Yamaguchi wasn’t buying it, but at least he played along, stretching and warming up so that he would be in peak position to keep the spot on the bench comfortably warm.

 

“And your winner, against all the odds and qualifying for the semi-finals, from the Shimane prefecture, Hamada High School!” The announcer’s voice bellowed through the arena, the first match coming to a close as one of the fellow tournament favourites bowed out at the hands of what was effectively a no-name team from one of the smallest prefectures in the country. Karasuno felt a spike of hope in their locker room as they anticipated taking centre stage on the court. If somebody else could do it, then so could they.

 

The announcer called out the teams one after another, Itachiyama being presented at first, parading their players out to rapturous applause from the crowd. A lot of them admittedly wanted to see the spectacle that was their impressive performances. There were no boos. Sportsmanship was as ever-present as usual, even if in the eyes of a lot of people, Itachiyama were presented as the bad guys, put in the way of Karasuno’s underdog story (although, another underdog story awaited in the semi-finals for whoever won). Karasuno followed suit afterwards to a much less celebrated response from the crowd, most of them not really knowing anything about Karasuno other than hearing their name as the underdog story. After all, Itachiyama was a team that regularly played in Nationals year after year, their ace was regarded as one of the best in the country that everyone in the building would know about if they had even a remote interest in volleyball beyond it being a club activity. It was no real surprise that Karasuno were going in as the underdogs, yet not celebrated as such.

 

Daichi and Sakusa shook hands in the centre of the court as the team assembled for the match. The Karasuno line-up was unchanged from the last game: Sugawara, Asahi, Kinoshita, Hinata, Tsukishima and Daichi. Nishinoya rotated with Tsukishima during the passage of play, and Narita and Yamaguchi sat on the bench, Kageyama, Ennoshita and Tanaka in the stands trying their hardest to cheer, rally up support, and possibly over-zealously threaten anyone who says a bad thing about any member of the team, or criticising their performance as if they could do any better. Their overprotectiveness was very audible from the court, and served as another bolster to the morale of the Karasuno team as they went in to their main event, their grand showdown against the best team in the tournament.

 

The pace was set early on, Itachiyama roaring out of the blocks, Sakusa scoring point after point with Nishinoya slowly but surely picking up on how he prefers to spike, getting closer and closer to receiving his spikes. Sugawara’s morale was as high as ever, keeping the team upbeat and never complacent enough to let the game slip so far out of their grasp that they would be consistently giving up three, four or even five points in a row in a desperate yet reckless attempt to save face. The usual team cohesion that came with the same lot of players typically playing every match together had been ripped apart by losing two starters and their number one backup, so it did take a little time to settle in, even if the last match was played partially with the same team. All in all, the first set was far from a disaster, it was exactly what the crowd had expected, but Karasuno saw the opportunity to scrap their way to a win in the second set given they had only bowed out 25-21 in the first set. There was a slowly building air of confidence surrounding the team. Tsukishima was noticing the spikers trying to avoid him, he noticed them trying to avoid Nishinoya, there was a clear tactical battle going on and that was the edge keeping them ahead as Karasuno played out of their heart. Come next year, Karasuno would likely have one of the best teams in the country, but at the moment, they were still rough around the edges and Itachiyama capitalized on it, only Tsukishima seemingly being alert enough to notice.

 

“We need to do something to disrupt their rhythm. Momentum is on their side and if we give them the chance to pull ahead, we’re done for good.” Daichi, taking a strategist role that usually he avoided, foreboding Ukai’s help to call a team meeting on his own, evidently confident enough in their own ability as a team to pull something out of the bag.

“Yamaguchi. If he can score a point, we’ll have the lead, and we can keep using him to score points and break their rhythm until they find a way to stop his serves, but it could take a while. Not even Noya can do that consistently at the moment, and their libero doesn’t look like he’s on Noya’s level.” Ever the head of the Yamaguchi fan club, Tsukki would do all he could to try and get his little pet project of Yamaguchi’s fitness and skill development on to the court to try and make the difference, whether it was for his own gratification, for the good of the team, or just to give Yamaguchi a chance.

“Tsukishima… you know that’s not a risk we should be taking at this point. If he messes up, it’s game over. They have momentum, we have a pinch server with no confidence. We can’t even say it’s a 50/50 if he hits or misses because with his fitness and recovery, he’s probably more likely to miss and it’s just not a chance we’re willing to take right now.” Daichi, taking his realism to the same extreme level of earlier in the day on the bus, would not be the one to give the go-ahead to their wildcard, the last trick in their sleeve in Yamaguchi. Try as Tsukki may to get him in to the team, there was evidently not much room to manoeuvre with Daichi stuck in the mind-set that there was just no way that Yamaguchi had recovered in time to play.

“Are you kidding me? He worked harder than the entire team to do this, and you’re just going to ignore him for your subjective idea that he’s not ready? Not good enough? Did you even pay any attention to his determination to get back in? Or did you just decide from day one there was no chance of this happening and aren’t going to let any evidence against you sway your mind.” The fierce defending of his boyfriend was a rather aggressive change in the usual calm and calculate demeanour that Tsukki displayed. Yamaguchi had heard his name from the bench, piquing his interest, perking him up and listening intently.

“The kid nearly died. He broke basically everything. He got told a week ago that he can’t play. Who are you to tell me what’s best for the team when you apparently don’t even know what’s best for the one member on it who needs protecting the most?”

“What gives you the fucking right to tell me that I don’t know what’s best for Yamaguchi? You people all wrote him out as an after note that was cut from the team for the rest of the year and never ever game him a single look in! You were whining and complaining on the way here that we had no chance to win this, and now here you are, calling a team meeting and whining and complaining that you don’t want to take a risk when we need it the most. I don’t think the issue is that you don’t think Yamaguchi can help this team win. I think the issue is that you don’t think you can help this team win and you’re not even going to try.”

“Don’t you dare question my captaincy for this team.”

“Am I wrong? Are you not doing what your heart tells you? That the team is going to lose and that there’s no reason to take a chance? That you’re not going to do whatever it takes to win? Look me in the damn eyes, Daichi, and tell me that you have a commitment to a plan on saving this team from the jaws of defeat, because I know that you don’t, and I don’t know why you’re delaying the inevitable.” The team was on the verge of pulling the heated argument apart should it turn to any sort of violence, but instead, Daichi did exactly what Tsukki asked of him. He leaned forward, aggressively pressing forehead to forehead and looking him in the very eyes he challenged him to meet.

“Oh yeah, I have an idea for what I think is best for the team right now. Based on the mood you’re in, you’re playing for your own vested interests and not the good of the team. Get off the court. We’re bringing on Narita.”

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me.” Daichi pulled away and called to the referee. “Substitution. Number seven in for number eleven.” Tsukki begrudgingly retreated to the bench, throwing himself down next to Yamaguchi. Instead of trying to say something to calm Tsukki down, Yamaguchi did what he figured would help Tsukishima the most. He stayed quiet, saying nothing that would give Tsukki more room to argue, resting his head on his shoulder and relaxing, trying to make Tsukki feel comfortable in their closeness.

“This is going to cost us, Tadashi. I don’t know how you can stand for this.”

“Mhm.”

 

Karasuno won the second set 25-23.


	33. Climax

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> FINAL CHAPTER HYPE

The third set would always be the shakiest. Given it was a best of five, with things tied at one to one, whoever lost would have to win the remaining sets to advance, and if you’ve already lost two of the first three, the momentum is against you, and you can’t ever afford to slip up from that point onwards. Tsukki could sense the absolute crucial need to win this set, and yet, he could do naught about it, stuck on the bench, watching Narita, knowing full well that he was a better player than him, take his spot on the team, solely because he got a little hot-headed, calling out Daichi for what he thought was a perfectly valid criticism. Given how observant Tsukki usually was, he felt like he had struck enough of a nerve with a correct assumption for Daichi to punish him with a spot on the substitutions bench. A bench that was now populated with only him and Yamaguchi.

 

“I could have got that. I knew he’d spike it straight. Why the hell won’t they let me fix this? They’ve been rotating their plays consistently for the last few points, and nobody has caught on to it.” Tsukki bemoans his team’s lack of perception as Itachiyama hits the 20 point mark. Karasuno, despite their plucky resurgence in the second set, only tallying up 16.

“Give it time. They’ll realise how much they need you if they keep getting destroyed as hard as this.” Yamaguchi giggles to himself, seemingly the only person not caught up in the moment. His light-hearted attitude towards Nationals would be infuriating to Tsukki if he didn’t have bigger issues to be grumpy about.

“Are you kidding? It’ll be too late by then. And they fluked the last set anyway, so they think they’re hot shit.”

“Now now. Don’t be envious. You’re gonna get your chance in every single other tournament after this, and you already started in every single game so far, and you’ll probably end up as captain one day.”

“Maybe Ukai will stop letting Daichi do his own thing and make him put me back on.” Yamaguchi rolls his eyes as he sees Tsukki seem almost desperate, turning to his conniving side.

“It does seem a little odd that he’d give him that much power, but we’ve been doing great so far, so I guess he has faith in Daichi.” Sakusa scores another spike that Tsukki grumbles at, again claiming he could have stopped it. The score turns 22-17

“Yeah, doing great so far.”

 

 

As anticipated, the inevitable capitulation of Karasuno in the third set happened as they bowed out 25-18. Change was absolutely necessary at this point, and Daichi, despite the constant air of perceived surrender around him, felt like he needed to do something to change the run of the game. At the rate things were going, Karasuno were on the verge of sheer obliteration in the fourth set, a third that would be collected by Itachiyama and send Karasuno crashing out and the third years in to a rather embarrassing end of career slump as high school students. Daichi did have a game plan, and now was as good a time as any to execute it.

“Substitution,” Daichi calls out, and Tsukki realises his time is about to come to turn the game around and starts stretching. Number 7 for Number 12.

“Excuse me?” Tsukki stared in disbelief, then turned to Yamaguchi who had as much shock and confusion on his face, only to burst out in to excitement and make his way on to the pitch. He gave Tsukki a smile and a thank you before entering the fray. Tsukki returned to the bench with a strange concoction of envy, relief and pride as Yamaguchi took the spot he so certainly believed was his.

 

Coach’s instructions were passed on to Yamaguchi as he was brought on, and to absolutely nobody’s surprise, it was the three words that Yamaguchi was only good for according to many: Jump float serve. He was probably going to be subbed off the moment play was broken after it. He was probably not going to see the game again if he missed it, and no more than two or three times if he scored. At this point, they were desperate to find any sort of change in play that could help push Karasuno on to win the 4th set and take it to the death.

Yamaguchi stood outside of the court, perfectly in line with the middle. He adjusted the ball in his hands, the entire team, the entire bench, the entire opposition, and the entire audience, all of them staring at him and only him, ready for him to have his defining moment at Nationals. The moment that he worked so hard to have, so much rehabbing and emotional trauma overcome after such a horrific injury. Every single major moment of the last few months had added up to this one moment: the cancelling of Friday’s practices, the sleepovers with Tsukki, the accident, the confession, the rehabilitating, the recovery, the spot on the bench. Everything was about to culminate in the one thing he had pushed so hard for. He remembered his promise with Tsukki, completely and utterly determined to fulfil it so they could both grant each other the one thing they wanted most from the other. Yamaguchi smiled softly as he thought of what he was going to ask should he hit this service. He composed himself, released the tension in his body and took form, running up, throwing the ball up and soaring through the air to hit it, and yet…

 

Nothing. His serve hits the net. Yamaguchi messed up, and play continues as normal without him. At that immediate moment if felt like everything that he had strived to achieve for several months was now totally irrelevant. What was the point? Was it just another sick joke by life trying to set Yamaguchi back yet again? All if his formerly abandoned anxieties and doubts were moving rapidly from creeping in to overwhelming his body. He stood silent, frozen still as every thought swept through his head at once, every memory filling his mind until a familiar voice tried to snap him back to reality.

“Yamaguchi. Yamaguchi! …Tadashi!” Yamaguchi looked around for a moment to see Tsukishima holding his shirt number on the side-lines ready to be brought on to compensate for Yamaguchi’s mistake, while Yamaguchi was being sent back to the ignominy of the substitutes bench without having contributed a god damn thing to his team. He trudged off to sit misty eyed in his own personal misery, watching the team completely and utterly stumble their way through the fourth set and eventually, despite Tsukki quite blatantly saving them from sheer embarrassment (and probably would have helped them win the match in earlier sets), losing quite badly in the fourth set, the Karasuno dream ended by Itachiyama.

 

Tsukki grumbles to himself. He sees Daichi kneeling in the middle of the court with tears in his eyes, so blatantly distraught by their elimination, and his third year moment snatched away as he was set to graduate in a few weeks’ time. So much for the stoic captain who seemed happy to accept whatever outcome of the match may come because ‘they never stood a chance in the first place’. He was a snivelling mess, as were most of the team seeing their captain act as such. It was like a battlefield with bodies lying down collapsed, exhausted and broken, crying or on the verge of crying, and only being worsened by seeing their comrades doing the same. The only people who seemed detached from the whole thing was a vengeful and bitter Tsukki who damn well that he could have helped the team have a better shot at winning, and Yamaguchi who seemed completely and utterly emotionally disconnected on the bench, having hardly moved since he failed his serve, and staring blankly in to the distance a thousand yards away.

 

“Relax. It wasn’t your fault. They fucked this up on their own. One point wouldn’t have made a single difference.” Tsukki allowed his bitterness at the situation to seep out in his attempt to comfort Yamaguchi. He slung an arm around Yamaguchi’s shoulder for a one armed cuddle. “There’s always next year, right? Not even next year. Two tournaments a year and all. Six months and you’ll kick ass again.”

“There’s no next time for the third years.”

“That’s not your fault.”

“Why isn’t it?” Yamaguchi meets Tsukki’s eyes with the most pathetically teary look he could have possibly given him.

“I already told you, Tadashi, one point wasn’t going to make a difference.”

“You got kicked out for half the game because you were trying to defend me! If I wasn’t here like I was supposed to, you would have played the whole thing and won! And I wouldn’t have messed up and there’d be more points for us and not them, and we could have won Nationals, and I ruined it for you, I ruined it for the third years, I ruined it for the people who want to join the volleyball club, I ruined it for the people watching, I ruined it for everyone! Why did I even try to get back in the team? I wasn’t ready, I wasn’t good enough. I’m not strong enough to be here. What was any of this for?” Yamaguchi had all but exhausted himself in his rant with tears streaming down his cheek as he clutched the edge of the bench and panted slightly.

“Are you done?”

“What?”

“Are you done?” Tsukki glares at Yamaguchi, not out of a lack of caring, but more so he can make a point once Yamaguchi’s frustrations have been sufficiently vented. “How can you say you aren’t strong enough to be here? You are here. You played. So what if it didn’t go to plan, you played. You got here and you overcame everything that was put in front of you, and you actually got to play. Is that not what you wanted?”

“But we lost.”

“You’ve got 3 or 4 tries to win Nationals by my count. Look, Top 8 in the country and losing to the team who are going to be number one isn’t a bad achievement. You can’t be the best in the country. 64 teams came here this week and we ended up in the last 8. We’re the top eighth of all teams at Nationals. You know how many people lost in qualifying for Nationals? Think of how massive an achievement this is even though we lost. Come on, Yamaguchi. I know you’re upset you didn’t score, but think of it this way. You shouldn’t have even had a chance to score, and you got that chance. So what if you didn’t seize it?”

As per usual, Yamaguchi fell silent the moment he realised he didn’t really have anything sensible that he could say in response, and just wanted to avoid repetition and an extended earful from Tsukki. He offered a hand to Yamaguchi, pulling him off the bench and in to his arms, foreboding logical arguments for a more personal form of comfort.

 

A voice blared over the PA system announcing a break before the next game takes place. Tsukki decided that this was his opportunity to try and make amends for Yamaguchi. The rest of the team began thinning out on the court and heading to the back to wallow in their bittersweet success at Nationals. Daichi called out for Tsukki and Yamaguchi.

“Hurry up to the locker rooms. I have a team meeting to address before this is all over.”

“Hold on for a second, Daichi, I have to do something really quickly.” Tsukki waved him off, then quickly scouted the court, looking for the nearest volleyball and running towards it. “Tadashi, wait there, okay?” Once Tsukki had picked up the nearest ball he could find, he quickly charged back to Yamaguchi and handed it to him.

“What are you doing?”

“We had a deal, right? You hit a jump serve at Nationals, you get a wish, and I get a wish. Well, who cares when you do it, nobody said it had to happen in a match at Nationals. We’re here and we’re at Nationals, you’ve got a ball, and you’ve got me on the other side of the court waiting to receive it. You can do this.” Yamaguchi, rather than responding, started welling up and trying his damned hardest to fight back tears. Suddenly, Tsukki was validating everything he had been through. The anguish Yamaguchi was suffering in his belief that it was all for nothing had vanished. All the anxiety and self-worth issues, they weren’t exactly going away, but they were certainly going to take a back seat for the time being as Tsukki gave him his chance at redemption, even though nothing was at stake.

“I’m waiting, Tadashi.” Tsukki was positioned on the other side of the court, ready to receive, and smiling as sincerely as Tsukki could. Yamaguchi dried his eyes on the sleeve of his uniform, walked to the edge of the court, ran up, tossed the ball in to the air and hit it a cleanly as he ever had in practice. Time felt as if it had frozen as he glided through the air, seeing the ball make its approach towards Tsukki, then swerving at the last second, the ball hitting the ground at the same time as Yamaguchi. Tsukki’s brief moment of shock turned in to a broad smile, charging to the other side of the court to dive on top of Yamaguchi, who himself had not managed to let the shock leave his face. A few stragglers in the audience cheered, not knowing the circumstances behind the gesture, but appreciating seeing the boy whose missed serve may have started the downfall of his team eventually prove that he was good enough all along. Sure, the rest of the team weren’t watching, and nobody would really appreciate the moment, but he had done it, and nobody was going to take it away from him.

 

“One wish. What’ll it be, Tadashi?” Tsukki and Yamaguchi both hauled themselves off the ground.

“You go first. I want to know what we’re allowed to ask for.” Yamaguchi wasn’t even sure if he knew what he wanted because he wasn’t really expecting this moment to happen.

“Anything. Anything you want. Go for it.”

“Well I could ask you for a billion yen but you can’t provide that,” Yamaguchi teased as he rolled his eyes at Tsukki so blatantly missing the point.

“You don’t know that.”

“Okay, I want a billion yen.”

“I can’t do that.” They laughed at each other before Yamaguchi went back to the subject at hand.

“Well, what can you do?”

“Okay, you’re not complying here. How about this. We say it at the same time. On 3. Okay?” Tsukki bargained with the unnecessarily finicky Yamaguchi.

“Deal.”

“Okay, on three. One. Two. Three!”

“I want to see you naked.”

“I want you to stop beating yourself up so… much… about volleyball… Tadashi that is not what I was expecting to hear from you at all.” Yamaguchi was red faced, as was Tsukki, neither of them especially knowing how to react to the massive disparity between the magnitude of their requests.

“Kei… I…”

“I mean, I’ll do it.” Tsukki was still struggling to speak clearly in response.

“You will?”

“Yeah…” Yamaguchi rubbed the back of his neck as he pointed towards the locker room for them to head back in time for Daichi’s team meeting. They started walking in silence before Yamaguchi tried to break the awkwardness of the situation

“So do you want me to do the same?”

“Oh my god, Tadashi.”

“No?”

“I thought it went without saying. Let’s just get out of here… There’s a crowd watching us.”

“Right! Locker room.”

 

 

Everyone seemed surprisingly fired up given the solemn state of the team collapsed on the court floor moments ago. Tsukki and Yamaguchi were the only ones who didn’t give off that vibe, but they had every reason to do so. Even the team members who were forced to sit out and watch the game from the stands were excited, probably because they had the fire lit inside of them that would spur them on to making Nationals next year.

“Okay, everyone, listen up, because this is the kind of speech you only get to make once in your life, and I want it to resonate with all of you enough to take it through the rest of your volleyball careers, whether it’s just in high school, as a hobby once you graduate, or going professional like I know some of you are more than capable of.” Daichi’s bellowing voice commanded the attention of his entire team. It was the kind of approach that was befitting of a captain, and his speeches were more than worthy of the title.

“I’m getting it out of the way now. This is it for us third years. This is the curtain call where we get our last moment in our uniforms, so you can bet I want to leave a lasting impression with this.” Nobody would dare interrupt with every pause that Daichi took. They were hanging off of their captains every word.

“We’ve all been through a lot together. All of us. Some more than others. Hell, some of us have been through a lot alone, and we were the ones who ended up helping them through it, because we’ve always been more than just teammates. We have each other’s backs. We make sacrifices for each other because we know that it’s what’s best for the team in the long run, and I want that to continue with us third years gone, you got it? I want it to continue with the new first years who come in to this team after seeing us do so well at Nationals. I want you to make sure each and every one of them is taught what it means to wear the black and orange of Karasuno. This shirt is more than just a uniform. It’s more than an identifier. It represents everything that this team stands for, and that doesn’t change with us third years graduating, okay? Don’t miss us. Welcome us leaving. Welcome a new era of Karasuno players who can go on to do even bigger and better things than we did. We keep moving forward, because that’s what it means to be Karasuno.” There was no stopping to cheer or applaud as Daichi took his moments to collect his thoughts.

“Kageyama, Hinata, you know it more than any of us. Hopefully by now you’re appreciating what we put you through when you were new to the team because of how it helps in the long run. Noya, you know it just as well too. You and Asahi had your issues, and instead you worked through it and came back stronger. Second years, you quit, and you came back, and you all had a chance to make your mark on Nationals when the fire was lit inside you to want to help this team become a team and not a group of individuals. Tsukishima, Yamaguchi, I don’t even think I need to remind everyone what you did for each other to get here. Every single one of you knows how to encompass the spirit of Karasuno, and that’s never going to change no matter who comes in and out of these gymnasiums.” People could tell Daichi was approaching the end of his speech. His eyes were misty as he made a desperate attempt to not break down as he said his goodbyes to the team as a team.

“Suga, Asahi? Do you have anything to add before we get on with things?”

“I couldn’t have put it better myself Daichi.” Asahi nodded at Suga’s addition before Daichi took the prompt to move on to the end of his honours speech.

“So, what needs to be done now is replacing us. No, not replacing, passing on the torch. Your new captain is the second year I think embodies what it means to lead this team more than anybody else here. So with that, I’ll be passing on my captaincy to you, Ennoshita.” A beaming grin spread across Ennoshita’s face as the rest of the team congratulated and patted him on the back for his new role with the team.

“As for the vice captaincy. This isn’t normally the route that gets taken, but this is a team that is run on principles of unity and determination. And sometimes, the best option isn’t always picking the most senior, especially not when you have a mantra to upkeep like we do. I’m pretty sure that Sugawara agrees with me, so would you do the honours?” Sugawara smirked as the speech was passed on to him. He was on the same page as Daichi and knew exactly where this was going.

“Oh absolutely. As Daichi said it best, sometimes seniority has to be put aside for somebody who is a perfect fit for the role. Maybe it’s a surprise to some of you, and it’s definitely not a surprise to others, but I’ll be handing over my vice captaincy to Yamaguchi.” Yamaguchi’s eyes shot wide open as the room was filled with a brief silence, broken by Tsukishima pulling a still shocked Yamaguchi in to his arms as the rest of the team cheered and applauded.

“Yes, Suga’s vice captaincy is going to Yamaguchi. Nobody, second or first year is, in my eyes, more deserving of being Ennoshita’s number two, and almost certainly come this time next year the team captain. Nobody on the team has been through more and still found a way to do everything it takes against any and all challenges to try and help the team. If there’s one person the spirit of Karasuno is befitting of, it’s Yamaguchi. Congratulations you two. Good luck in leading the team to even higher heights at the next tournament.” Daichi looked around the room and the silence in it despite the energy flowing through the team. “If that’s everything, let’s head back to the stands to watch the fallout of this tournament. It’ll be a nice change to watch some volleyball without any distractions.”

 

“You’re the fucking vice-captain, Tadashi. I can’t believe it. Well, I can, you deserve it, but holy shit.” Tsukki was in awe of his boyfriend’s new role.

“I… I can’t believe this. I have to try and lead the team in the future. Me, a leader. Who would have thought?” Yamaguchi laughed nervously.

“I think you’ll be a great leader. You’re inspiring enough as it is. Think of how fired up the new first years will be when you tell them what you had to do to get to Nationals and make your mark.”

“Well, my mark wasn’t exactly that glorious, was it?”

“Well, no, but you still had your moment, did you not? We got our wishes, and now you’re vice-captain. So, are you holding up your end of the bargain? A vice-captain sure as hell can’t be the defeatist in front of the team. That’s a terrible example,” Tsukki teased.

“Well, you know that’s not how it works. Mental stuff, y’know.”

“I know.”

“But yeah, I think you’re right. I can at least work on it. I can give it my best shot anyway.”

“That’s the spirit.”

“And Kei, I’ll only do it if you hold up your end of the bargain.”

“Of course.”

“So how about this, a sleepover on Friday, just like before, and maybe we do this whole boyfriends thing a little more… romantically.”

“Hey, there’s more to romance than being naked. What happened to giving the person you love a nice dinosaur figure from the gift store of the local planetarium?”

“Is that a hint?”

“It might be. But the whole, uh, other part works too. 16’s an ok time to start, right?”

“It might be. Maybe not the whole way. I didn’t ask for that.”

“Right.”

“So is that a deal then? Friday, first sleepover as boyfriends. First sleepover as vice-captain and his inferior in the team.” Yamaguchi giggled to himself.

“Hey! You’re not superior to me just because you get to tell me what to do now.”

“I know, I know. I’m just teasing.” They began walking towards the exit with the team before Daichi stopped the entire team in their tracks for one last message to the team.

 

“Just before us third years say our goodbyes, I have one thing to ask from the team.” Daichi was beyond the point of being misty eyed, tears streaming down his face as the team huddled around in a circle, Yamaguchi and Tsukki next to each other with their arms over each other’s shoulders, Yamaguchi giving Tsukki a quick peck on the cheek as they waited for Daichi to give the familiar battle cry, albeit this time, a lot more teary eyed, both from him and the rest of the team, preparing to give the third years one last moment of team unity before graduation. One last embodiment of their team spirit and one last representation of everything that they had been through to get here.

“Karasuno… Fight!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you made it this far good job you finished a pretentious, edgy and poorly written fic i made


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